Glass 

Book 

CopightN 0 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Historic Christianity and 

The New Theology 



By 

Harold Paul Sloan, D. D. 

A Pastor in the New Jersey Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 




PENTECOSTAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. 
1922 



COPYRIGHT, 1922. 
BY 

Pentecostal Publishing Company. 
Louisville, Kentucky. 



SEP21 '23 



DEDICATED TO THE COMING 
GENERATION, 
In grateful recognition of my great debt 
to parents, teachers and others of a genera- 
tion before, through whose life and tuition I 
was taught the wonder and mystery of 
Christ 



CONTENTS. 



Chapters Page 

1 The Situation Defined 9 

2 The Seriousness of the Course of 
Study Issue 14 

3 The Present Law, and the Present 
Situation in the Matter of the 
Course of Study 20 

4 The Present Course Does Not Ful- 
fill the Requirements of the Law of 

the Church 30 

5 The Five Great Philosophies of Life. 39 

6 Studies in Christianity by Borden 

P. Bowne 52 

7 Child Psychology and Religious 
Pedagogy 68 

8 Meyer, Wiegle and Betts 77 

9 Modern Pre-Millennialism and the 
Christian Hope 89 

10 New Testament History 99 

11 A History of the Christian Church. 114 

12 The Main Points . . . .134 

13 Introduction to the Study of Soci- 
ology 147 

14 Outline of Christian Theology 157 

15 Some Minor Items 163 

16 Books that will help the Christian 
Who Wants to Relate Historic 
Christianity to Modern Truth 172 

17 Darwinism a Creed 179 

18 In Conclusion . . . .193 



INTRODUCTION. 



In offering this volume to the Church the 
writer wishes in advance to say three things. 

First, it is popular among the "liberals" 
to discredit their critics, and to try and raise 
dust by classifying all opponents as pre-mil- 
lennialists. The writer has already been so 
classified repeatedly. We therefore point 
out at the outset that pre-millennialism is not 
to the slightest degree the point of view of 
these pages. However we want also to say 
that every Methodist has a right to believe 
in the premillennial coming of the Savior if 
he so desires. The defined position of our 
Church is that Jesus will return to judge 
both the quick and the dead, and any view 
of the details of his coming is appropriate 
in the Methodist Church that is in accord- 
ance with this definition. Personally we 
have never developed a conviction at this 
point much beyond that which is defined in 
our standards. Ever since those precious 
student days under Olin Alfred Curtis at 
Drew Seminary the doctrines of salvation 
and of the Trinity have been our eager in- 
terest. We have read in Escatology, and 
concerning the second coming of Jesus, but 
the details of this expectation have never 
largely occupied our thinking. We believe, 
however, that all those who contend for 
Christian confession should insist simply up- 
on the common Christian confession of the 
centuries, that Jesus is coming again to 
judge both the quick and the dead, and 



should leave the details of belief here to the 
free thought of the individual. 

Second, in all that we have undertaken 
to do for the preservation of Methodist and 
Christian fundamentals we have sought to 
avoid the legal, the embittered, the radical, 
the divisive. It ought to be possible to re- 
cover our Methodism from its present dan- 
ger without slowing down its activities or 
dividing its forces. The present Commis- 
sion have produced a course of study that 
clearly violates the constitution of the 
Church and the law of the last General Con- 
ference; yet we would not move to have an 
Annual Conference set it aside: for such an 
action would be likely to be divisive. If the 
next General Conference can change the per- 
sonnel of the present Commission somewhat, 
and can find some practical way of making 
itself the court of last appeal upon this su- 
premely important matter we will have sav- 
ed the future and can afford to forget the 
past. 

Third, we are deeply aware that this dis- 
cussion has and will inevitably cause 
wounds ; indeed, we have borne wounds in it 
ourselves. We must ask from our oppo- 
nents the charity we gladly extend to them. 
The days in which we are living are crucial 
days. Civilization is giving birth to a new 
era. Two philosophies are in conflict to 
dominate it. The one is supernatural His- 
toric Christianity. The other is naturalism 
in many forms. The minds of men are con- 
fused. The bounds of science on the one 
hand and of creed upon the other are not 
clearly understood. We have been thinking 
on the surface; we must be forced to think 



dawn in the depths again. During this 
period of crisis the great Christian foun- 
dations of the centuries must be preserved. 
Free charitable Christian discussion must 
sift truth from error, and by book and peri- 
odical and its directive leadership the 
Church must lead the thought of the twen- 
tieth century to a new devotion to the faith 
of all the Christian centuries, the faith of 
Christ, the faith God incarnate gave once 
for all to men. This is our conviction and 
our program. 

Harold Paul Sloan. 

Bridgeton, N. J. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE SITUATION DEFINED. 

HEN a student of philosophy, us- 
ing as his text hooks the philo- 
sophical writings of Borden P. 
Bowne, the writer learned the 
absolute necessity of defining 
exactly his task before under- 
taking it. This has become a mental habit 
with him, and so in opening this discussion 
of the present-day conflict in Theology we 
will first of all undertake to locate it and to 
discover its springs. 

In many quarters, where a close analysis 
of the present controversy has not been 
made, there is an indefinite feeling that it is 
all a question of Higher Criticism, and that 
Higher Criticism is a sort of new infidelity, 
and that all Higher Critics are infidels. This 
opinion is very mistaken. Higher Criticism 
has no necessary relation to the present con- 
troversy, and in so far as it has any rela- 
tion this relationship stands as a symptom 
rather than as the cause of the modern con- 
fusion. 

Higher Criticism need not be destructive 
of Christian faith, and it often is not. In 
itself it is nothing more than a close inves- 
tigation of the Scripture writings in the 
light of contemporary history, and of liter- 
ary qualities. It is a natural and legiti- 
mate method of study, though it hard- 
9 




10 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



ly seems to be entitled to foe called a 
science, for the subjective element is 
too large a factor in all of its conclu- 
sions. There has been, and there still is, 
the widest possible differences between the 
critics both in their pre-suppositions and in 
their conclusions. A system of thought so 
variously based, and coming to such diverg- 
ent results can be called a science only by 
large accommodation. Some of the critics 
are bald rationalists who reject everything 
supernatural, and with it the whole of 
Historic Christianity. But some of them be- 
lieve firmly in the supernatural, and fully 
recognize the supernatural element both in 
the biblical revelation itself and in sacred 
history. Dr. James Orr, in his "Problem of 
the Old Testament," points this out, and he 
classifies Dr. Driver, of Oxford, among the 
latter group of critics whose pre-supposi- 
tions and conclusions are not destructive of 
Christian faith. Dr. Orr does not, however, 
accept Dr. Driver's findings, and he gives 
his reasons for not doing so. 

But here is our point: Higher Criticism, 
if a science at all, is not an absolute science. 
The inductive basis for its findings is often 
even less impressive than the questionnaire 
inductions of modern Psychology. But 
science or not, criticism is only incidentally 
involved in the modern theological conflict; 
it is anything but the center of the fray. 
The average preacher can afford to let the 
critical battle go on, and be unconcerned. 
Whether there are documents behind the 
Pentateuch, or whether Isaiah was written 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 11 



by one prophet or by several, the supernat- 
ural cannot be gotten out of the Old Testa- 
ment. In spite of the worst Criticism can 
do, the Hebrew Old Testament remains the 
one fount of ethical monotheism, and in its 
sublime literature is announced the coming, 
the suffering, and the glory of Messiah. 
These two facts fix it forever as a supernat- 
al writing, and nothing but the wilful vio- 
lence of unbelief can possibly deny them. 

It seems to us to be of the utmost impor- 
tance that this fact should be recognized by 
every person who is anxious to do or say 
anything for the preservation of the Faith 
once for all delivered. It is not Criticism, 
but the bias of Darwinism in philosophy, 
and a deep-seated heart attitude of self-as- 
sertive self-sufficiency that is the cause of 
the present controversy. 

It is in the name of these things — Darwin- 
ism and personal self-sufficiency — that the 
attack is being made all along the center of 
the Christian line. Nearly every chief doc- 
trine of the Christian Faith is being denied. 
There are half a dozen fundamental truths 
in which Christianity can be summarized for 
every century from the Apostles to the pres- 
ent time; it will be advantageous to state 
them. They are : 

The Bible: A divine supernatural reve- 
lation brought to its climax in Christ 
through his apostles, which abides the only 
and sufficient rule of faith and practice. 

Depravity : That at the beginning of race 
history man sinned and fell, and that as a 
result he is universally abnormal in his mor- 



12 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



al and spiritual life, capable of being re- 
stored only by a supernatural work of God. 

The Incarnation: That the Eternal Son 
of God took on himself human nature in 
the womb of the Virgin. 

The Atonement: That by his death on 
the cross Jesus achieved forgiveness of sin 
for all who will believe. 

Justification by faith alone: That by a 
personal and ethical trust in the grace of 
God at the point of Christ's redeeming 
work man receives complete salvation; and 
that salvation is conditioned by such a faith 
and by nothing else. Good works thus be- 
come the fruit, and not the condition of sal- 
vation. 

Regeneration: A supernatural work of 
God whereby we are spiritually renewed, 
and made to feel the reality and glory of 
the moral and spiritual universe, and of God 
and of our Savior. 

The Second Coming of Christ, the resur- 
rection and the final judgment. 

These are the truths that are at stake. 
The so-called Liberal Christianity denies 
nearly, if not quite all, of them. In place of 
them it offers to us nothing but the teach- 
ings of Jesus, a mere system of ethical phi- 
losophy, the philosophy of love. True, it ap- 
preciates Jesus as the first of all teachers, 
the supreme example of the centuries ; but it 
denies His saviorhood. Many admit His 
deity, but reject His virgin birth and His 
bodily resurrection. Of course, their posi- 
tion is utterly untenable, and will certainly 
develop into Unitarianism, or worse. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 13 



The exponents of this creed of unbelief 
like to make extravagant claims for them- 
selves. They like to claim superior scholar- 
ship, and to assert that science supports 
their positions. One often hears that a man 
must commit intellectual suicide or else ac- 
cept the new positions. It is popular among 
them to speak of the Christian creeds as 
worn out and antiquated. But such argu- 
ments and claims are utterly puerile, no 
matter how distinguished the person may 
seem to be who uses them. And the sincere 
believer can depend upon it that they are 
simply the shifty resource of weakness. No 
man who can demonstrate his position by 
scientific certainties ever hangs it upon a 
claim of intellectual superiority. There is 
no fact of science that antagonizes any fun- 
damental belief of Historic Christianity. 
The Christian believer can clasp hands with 
the Christian ages before him, and calmly 
challenge his age to show that his position is 
intellectually untenable. The only possible 
reply to his challenge will be sarcasm or 
boasting, but at this he can afford to smile 
as a soldier who knows that his enemy is 
armed only with a cap pistol that simply 
makes a noise and has no other use. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE COURSE OP 
STUDY ISSUE. 

HIS doctrinal controversy of 
which we have been speaking is 
of tremendous significance to 
the Church : for not only are the 
very fundamental doctrines of 
Christianity being denied or 
superseded, but this is being done within the 
Church itself, and by its own pledged ser- 
vants. There are cities in which churches of 
the same denomination preach at cross pur- 
poses with each other. There are churches 
in which from one pastorate to another there 
is this same contradiction, and cross-fire of 
preaching. In the colleges of the Church the 
professors are divided upon the issue, and 
in numbers of class-rooms there is teaching 
destructive to the the very fundamental 
truths of our faith. 

Dr. Samuel Chadwick felt that the matter 
was sufficiently serious for him to mention 
it in his address to the recent Methodist 
Ecumenical in London. He said to the dele- 
gates that the Church would never recover 
its influence over the masses until it recov- 
ered faith in its own message. Dr. Paul 
Lynne, president of a Christian University 
at Fayette, Mo., made an even stronger state- 
ment. 

14 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 15 



But in the whole situation there is no sin- 
gle condition so fraught with grave menace 
as the presence of anti-Christian books in 
the Courses of Study of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. That this is not an idle state- 
ment but an actual fact we will sufficiently 
prove later on. At this present moment we 
want simply to try and measure the gravity 
of the situation. The Courses of Study pro- 
vide a theological curriculum for something 
like a thousand men every year; that is, 
about a thousand men are annually gradua- 
ted from these courses. Their influence is 
consequently vastly greater than that of any 
theological school in the Church. Their in- 
fluence is, indeed, many times greater than 
that of all our theological schools put to- 
gether. If the rationalistic element can con- 
trol these courses it is apparent enough that 
they will also quickly control the preaching 
emphasis of Methodism; ultimately, they 
will be able not only to control the preaching 
emphasis of the Church, but also practically 
to destroy its doctrinal foundations. 

Doubtless some one will want to reply, 
that they had supposed the new theology dif- 
fered from Historic Christianity only in that 
it used different terms to define the same old 
truths, or, at the most, that it differently in- 
terpreted the same great fundamentals. 
And there are many who have this impres- 
sion ; but it is mistaken. The new theology 
denies the whole centre of Historic Christi- 
anity, and leaves of it little beyond the ethics 
of love. 

We would like to ask if it is a mere matter 



16 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



of terms or interpretation when an author 
calls in question, or denies both the virgin 
birth and bodily resurrection of Jesus? 

Or, again, is nothing but terms and inter- 
pretation involved when Christ's redeeming 
sacrifice for sin is denied, and the statements 
of the evangelists that He went up to Jerusa- 
lem to accomplish this very thing is made a 
late and untrustworthy addition to the Gos- 
pel narrative? 

The great truth of justification by faith is 
rejected; and a consecration to love and 
serve God and men, that trusts the general 
goodness of God to accept our imperfect 
works and weak purposes, is substituted for 
it. These two conceptions are a hemisphere 
apart, both ethically and psychologically. Is 
such a difference to be passed by as a mere 
difference in terminology? 

The fall of man is denied, as is also any 
race-wide state of depravity. And for these 
truths they substitute the dogma of Darwin- 
ism, which is not only unsupported by facts, 
but is actually challenged by them. These 
two conceptions also are ethically a hemis- 
phere apart. 

Again, they have an errant Bible ; they do 
not hesitate to differ even with the Master 
himself, and that upon major items of his 
Gospel. This is certainly much more than 
a difference of interpretation when com- 
pared with the Christian faith of the Bible, 
that it is God's revelation, the only and suf- 
ficient rule of faith and practice. 

Again, some one may reply: "The one fun- 
damental doctrine of Christianity is the 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 17 



Deity of Christ; I will not be disturbed as 
long as this great truth is preserved." But 
this position is intellectually impossible. 
Christian doctrine is an organism. You can- 
not break it up into separate beliefs, and 
surrender one and keep another; you can 
no more do this with Christian doctrine than 
you can with the human body. 

The fall of man and depravity is insep- 
arable, for it is the occasion for all the rest ; 
it is the condition that all the rest meets. 

Justification by faith is the vital center of 
Christianity; it is the capstone of the arch. 
All the other Christian truths head up in- 
to this one. 

The Incarnation is the link between man 
lost in the fall and justified in faith; and 
historically, the Incarnation stands in just 
this redemptive relation. 

Again, the Incarnation is the supernatural 
climax of a centuries-long movement of su- 
pernatural revelation. 

Reject depravity and the occasion of the 
whole is gone. Reject justification and the 
crowning truth, the supreme purpose of all, 
is gone. Reject the supernatural revelation 
and the Incarnation stands isolated in his- 
tory and incredible. Again, we say, Chris- 
tian doctrine is an organism, a vital inner 
unity. It was not manufactured or evolved 
in human minds, but revealed supernaturally 
by Almighty God. It is the Faith once for 
all given to the saints ; and man who did not, 
and could not have conceived it, cannot im- 
prove it. 

And then, too, we would remind our ra- 



18 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



tionalistic brethren, who worship the god of 
change, mistakenly called by the name of 
"Progress," that Christian doctrine is his- 
torically accredited. Christian doctrine is 
not a theory ; it is an historic force. It does 
not need to boast; it has wrought. At the 
best the current rationalistic theories that 
are offered to us as a substitute for the 
Faith of the ages are but tottering infants 
without a history or any achievements. 
Christianity has built a civilization. What 
have these new theories done? The charita- 
ble answer is, nothing: for there are those 
who would say that the short history of 
these new theories is written in war, confu- 
sion and ruin. 

For twenty centuries men have triumphed 
in life and in death by the faith of Christ, 
as historically held. There is not a single 
fact of science against it. There is not a 
single demonstrated or demonstrable prin- 
ciple of philosophy against it. Darwinism 
is against it ; but Darwinism is a discredited 
dogma, practically abandoned by the leaders 
of thought in the exact sciences, both in Eu- 
rope and America. There is no haste; 
Christianity is a thing of centuries ; there is 
time for thought, deep thought, long 
thought, in settling this discussion. Some 
men may feel that it would be intellectual 
suicide to remain within the Christian 
Creeds, — but then superficial thinkers are 
easily frightened. Decades ago a young stu- 
dent was asked why he was not a Christian, 
and replied, my intellect will not let me be. 
The pithy reply of his questioner was, 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 19 



' 'Pascal was." And similarly to those breth- 
ren who feel they must hasten to get outside 
the Christian creeds we would reply : James 
Orr, James Denney, Reinhold Seeberg, 
Theodore Zahn, John Alfred Faulkner, Olin 
Alfred Curtis, F. Bettex, E. Dennert, P. T. 
Forsythe, J. H. Jowett, Robert Rogers, Pro- 
fessor Sheldon and thousands more of the 
foremost names in the intellectual world are 
staying in. 

But once again, and in conclusion here, we 
pause to assert that the Course of Study 
question is the most important single issue 
in this whole controversy. If a majority of 
the preachers of Methodism are taught con- 
trary to the established standards of their 
church and of Historic Christianity while 
they are taking their theological training, it 
will be a matter but of a few years before the 
Church's standards will be completely un- 
dermined. The fathers of Methodism built 
upon the common foundation of the Historic 
Christian Faith, and to preserve that foun- 
dation inviolate, they hedged it about in the 
constitution of the Church. If erroneous be- 
liefs are to be inculcated among our preach- 
ers in the courses of study, the preaching 
emphasis of the Church will be changed, and 
the foundations, which our fathers guarded 
so jealously, will be quickly destroyed. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE PRESENT LAW, AND THE PRESENT SITUA- 
TION IN THE MATTER OP THE COURSE 
OF STUDY. 

HE present controversy over the 
Course of Study dates back to 
the year 1916, although there 
had already been some danger- 
ous books in the Course before 
that year. 

But before the General Conference of 1916 
some brethren thought it would be well to 
take over the matter of our ministerial edu- 
cation, and some of them met, and to a con- 
siderable extent, completed the outline of a 
Course of Study. This was while the Bish- 
ops were still in charge, and while Bishop 
John W. Hamilton, as chairman of the Epis- 
copal committee, with this interest in charge, 
was still working upon his report. 

The probability is that these brethren 
brought their ideas to the attention of the 
General Conference. In any event that body 
adopted them, the Commission was appoint- 
ed, and the advance work done before the 
General Conference by certain brethren be- 
came the main outline of the Course of Study 
as printed in the Discipline of 1916. By the 
law of 1916 the Bishops were authorized to 
appoint all the members of the Commission, 
and were required to examine the books, act- 
ing as a board. The courses so provided 
20 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 21 



and approved became the authorized courses 
for the Church. 

The General Conference of 1920 made sev- 
eral changes in these provisions. Some of 
them they made at the instance of the Com- 
mission itself, which sent an elaborate re- 
port to the Committee on Education re- 
questing larger powers. The changes re- 
quested by the Commission met with gen- 
eral approval both in the sub-committee, the 
Committee on Education proper and in 
the General Conference. The powers of 
the Bishops in connection with the courses 
were somewhat further reduced, by making 
the naming of the educational members a 
function of the Board of Education. There 
were some brethren who had a question in 
their minds about this, but it seemed to meet 
with the general approval, and so, little, if 
anything was said about it. The other 
changes were all such as to strengthen and 
broaden the powers of the Commission, and 
to make the Conference Courses of Study a 
more effective educational institution. 

The responsibility given to the Board of 
Bishops, to make a final review of the 
course, and adopt it before it could be au- 
thoritative within the Church, was not an 
addition by the General Conference of 1920 ; 
it was a power left to the Bishops when the 
Commission law was drafted in 1916. 
The minority report did seek to strengthen 
the Bishops' hands by giving them the power 
of amending the Commission's report. But 
this provision, which would have strength- 
ened them greatly, was finally surrendered 



22 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



by the minority leader after the signal vic- 
tory of the minority group on the floor of the 
General Conference. 

The surrender was made as a means of 
composing the further differences of the mi- 
nority and majority groups of the Educa- 
tional Committee. It seemed that the cen- 
tral contention had been won. The General 
Conference had made a deliverance affirm- 
ing the binding authority of the established 
doctrinal standards, and providing that all 
books placed upon the Courses of Study must 
be in full and hearty accord with those 
standards. It seemed reasonable to suppose 
that the servants of the General Conference 
would govern themselves by its laws; and 
naturally it seemed both wiser and more 
generous to compose further differences, 
which were of so much less importance, and 
save the time of the Conference. 

But returning to the provisions of the law 
as finally adopted by the General Conference 
of 1920 : these strengthened the hands of the 
Commission, and broadened its authority; 
reduced the responsibility of the Board of 
Bishops by giving to the Board of Education 
the right of naming the educational mem- 
bers of the Commission; but still left to the 
Bishops the responsibility of finally re- 
viewing and approving the Course. 

These provisions were all a part of the 
majority report, which was cordially accept- 
ed by the committee as a whole. In addition 
to them the minority added two items, name- 
ly: 

1. It provided that no books should be 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 23 



given a place on any of the Courses of Study 
except such as are in full and hearty accord 
with those doctrines and that outline of 
faith established in the constitution of the 
Church. 

2. It further provided that John Wes- 
ley's standard sermons, and the Discipline, 
with some special emphasis upon the Arti- 
cles of Religion, must be included in the Con- 
ference Course. (Dis. Par. 210, Section 2) . 

We want that this whole matter shall be 
perfectly clear, so we will repeat: The law 
of the Church as revised in 1920 leaves the 
responsibility of the Bishops practically as 
it was fixed by the law of 1916. The powers 
and responsibilities of the Commission are 
considerably enlarged and a new provision is 
inserted requiring that every book in the 
Courses must be true to the established 
standards of Methodism. 

This new provision puts to silence the 
opinion whispered before the last General 
Conference, that Methodism has abandoned 
its old standards, and that new standards 
are being developed. If any one believed 
this before that time, now, in any event, he 
must surrender his opinion, for the Church 
has spoken with a decisive voice upon this 
very matter. 

But to return, this is the law under which 
the Commission provided the present Cours- 
es of Study, and the law under which the 
Bishops have approved them. That the law 
has not been fulfilled must now be patent to 
anyone who has examined the facts. Per- 
haps it is just because it is so patent that 



24 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



the Commission seems to be unwilling to 
meet its critics and prefers to resort to eva- 
sion and the suppression of the truth. We 
will not say, but everyone will realize that 
men do not use pamphlets if they have ready 
access to papers and reviews, and that when 
debate is offered and unaccepted there is 
generally a reason. However, no matter, the 
facts are coming through and in the long 
run the Church will settle the discussion. 

There is a word aside we would like to say 
at this point. Some men would argue that if 
the Course is not standard the Bishops are 
equally to blame with the Commission. We 
want to express our dissent from this opin- 
ion. There would seem to be some real ex- 
cuse for the failure of the Bishops to check 
up the errors of the Commission's work. In 
the first place, they are men over-burdened 
with a mass of supervisional responsibility. 
In the second place, it is a very much easier 
thing to select out of one's own reading a list 
of books fit to be the text-books of the Church 
than it is to criticise intelligently other 
men's lists, in which many books are likely to 
be unfamiliar. It is no small matter in the 
midst of a crowded administrative life to 
read carefully and critically fifty or so books 
(this many would be involved in the Confer- 
ence Course alone) ; and it is doubtless true 
that numbers of the Bishops did not have 
time during the six months that the Courses 
were before them to do so. The reasonable- 
ness of this opinion will be immediately con- 
vincing. 

Turning from the Bishops to the Comrnis- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 25 



sion the case is far different. But we prefer 
not to judge. There are many possibilities. 
With respect to several members of the Com- 
mission their own lack of hearty accord 
with our doctrinal standards has been so 
openly spoken that there can be no doubt of 
this attitude. These brethren may have 
dominated the councils, others may simply 
have acquiesced. But no matter, we are not 
fixing responsibility, we are simply trying 
to get the facts out. 

If the Commission selected these books in 
good faith with the full intention of obedi- 
ence to the law of the General Conference, 
we call upon them to come forward and 
make reply to the criticisms that are being 
laid against them. We would warn them 
that evasion and efforts to suppress the 
truth will not convince the Church that there 
is nothing in the criticisms. The critics 
may be mistaken, but they are sincere. As 
we see it, truths more precious than life are 
at stake, and we mean to force the facts out. 
We do not claim any superiority either of 
knowledge or of judgment; we claim noth- 
ing. We have read the books, we have an 
opinion of their doctrinal worth, we are 
standing this opinion alongside of that of the 
members of the Commission, and we will be 
heard, and the truth will prevail. 

As we read those books, it seemed to us 
that several deny the Atonement in Christ's 
death, or else set it aside ; that several deny 
or ignore Justification by Faith; that some 
deal slightingly with the fact of the virgin 
birth, while others slight or set aside the fact 



26 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



of Jesus' resurrection. Some deny the fall 
of man and teach the exploded dogma of 
Darwinian evolution. Some treat haltingly 
the Christian supernatural, make conscience 
a product of social evolution and utility, re- 
late prayer and inspiration to up-gushes 
from the sub-conscious mind. They make 
the faith of the Incarnation an evolution in 
the centuries rather than an authoritative 
teaching of Christ; and not only the apos- 
tles but the Savior himself is charged with 
error by them, and that with respect to a 
major item of his gospel. All this they do 
and more, and many of these things are 
done, not in one of the books, but in several. 
If these things are not taught and done it 
ought to be easy for the Commission to meet 
this criticism in fair, free discussion and 
show that they are not. And in any event 
can it be affirmed that books that seem, even 
to an average Methodist preacher, to teach 
such destructive ideas are in full and hearty 
accord with those doctrines, and that outline 
of faith established in the constitution of the 
Church 'I Under the law, a reasonable doubt 
ought to be enough to set aside a book. The 
Commission in rejecting, or the Bishops in 
refusing to approve, are not trying either a 
man or a book for heresy; they are simply 
saying that such a book is not suitable as a 
text-book in Methodism. 

When this discussion was begun we fav- 
ored retaining these interests in the hands 
of the Board of Bishops. We favored this 
for two reasons : First, the Bishops are men 
who have received the approval of a two- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 27 



thirds majority of the representatives of the 
Church, and so it would seem are likely to 
represent the majority opinion of the 
Church. Second, the Bishops are practical 
pastors rather than scientific theologians, 
and the putting of the Course into their 
hands, it would seem, would be likely to pro- 
tect the Church from a too abstract, theo- 
retical and impractical point of view. It 
must be admitted that there is force in these 
arguments; but on the other hand it must al- 
so be admitted that the educational advan- 
tages of a Commission with wider powers 
and responsibilities are great. The proba- 
bility is that the Commission idea has come 
to stay, and that the educational worth of 
the Conference Course of Study will in the 
future be even more largely developed. But 
if this is to be done, some method must be 
found whereby the Church can get a Com- 
mission that will be obedient to its will. 
Methodism cannot afford to have the major- 
ity of its ministers taught the private no- 
tions of commissioners instead of the estab- 
lished beliefs of the Methodist Church. 

Perhaps the line of progress in this mat- 
ter would be to require that all changes in 
the Courses must be published to the Church 
at large, when submitted to the Board of 
Bishops? Or, perhaps, to require that they 
be published a year in advance of the Gener- 
al Conference, and submitted for final ap- 
proval there? The latter course need not 
have any insuperable difficulties in its way. 
There is no need for a wholesale change of 
text-books every four years, and such 



28 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



changes as are required could easily fee deba- 
ted in open committee, and if division still 
appeared there they could even be debated 
on the floor of the General Conference. 

But finally, the Methodist Church is a 
part of historic Christianity; it is one with 
the faith of the ages. This position is de- 
fined ind established in its Articles of Relig- 
ion and other doctrinal standards. The 
great majority in the Church are determined 
to keep Methodism firmly established in this 
relationship. We are not unconscious of the 
doctrinal and philosophical currents that are 
in our day hostile to this position; we are 
familiar with them; we have considered 
them; we have rejected them. It is easy to 
criticise and ridicule the historic creeds and 
formularies. It is vastly more difficult to 
put logical and reasonable arguments behind 
one's criticisms. We have heard many men 
do the former; we have yet heard few, if 
any, men do the latter. "Liberal" Theology, 
so called, is on the whole a mere subjectivi- 
ty, and it is very often but poorly informed. 
Much of it rests simply upon Darwinism, 
which is only a dogma, and a declining dog- 
ma at that. If the liberal Christian offered 
his subjectivities as what they are, we would 
respect him; not indeed as a Christian, but 
as a gentleman with high ethical ideals. But 
when he offers these things as the inevitable 
conclusions of his science, the demonstra- 
tions of his philosophy, and holds the club of 
ridicule over the heads of all those who will 
not bow down, then we can but laugh at the 
ignorance of this man of boasted learning, 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 29 



who talks of science, and does not know its 
limitations, and of philosophy, and cannot 
analyze ibetween its predictions and its dem- 
onstrations. But the issue is on us and must 
be faced. Evasion, subterfuge and suppres- 
sion will not work. The critics stand ready 
to meet the commissioners collectively or in- 
dividually on any platform of the Church. 
Our only stipulation is that the conditions 
be equal and that there be a stenographic 
record of the discussion. We have faith in 
the right as God has given us to see the 
right. Let us have the venture and the 
Church shall decide. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PRESENT COURSE DOES NOT FULFILL THE 
REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW OF 
THE CHURCH. 

HE Course of Study as at pres- 
ent constituted contains twenty- 
four books to be studied, and 
twenty-three to be read. Of the 
books to be studied, seven do not 
come up to the standard re- 
quired by the law; and of those to be read, 
six do not. 

The books provided for study that are de- 
fective are: 

1. New Testament History, by Dr. Rail, of 
Garrett. 

2. The Pupil and the Teacher, by Dr. 
Weigle. 

3. The Graded Sunday School, by Dr. Mey- 
er. 

4. History of the Christian Church, by Dr. 
Walkdr, professor of Church History 
at Yale. 

5. The Christian Pastor, by the late Dr. 
Gladden. 

6. Introduction to the Study of Sociology, 
by Dr. Hayes, a professor in Illinois 
State University. 

7. The Five Great Philosophies of Life, by 
Dr. Hyde, of Bowdoin College, 

Not all of these books are to be criticised 
in equal degree, but we will not stop at this 
30 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 31 



point with details. The books in the 
reading* courses that are clearly out of ac- 
cord with our standards, and so do not fulfil 
the law are : 

1. The Main Points, by President Brown of 
Yale School of Religion. 

2. How to Teach Religion, by Professor 
Betts, of Northwestern. 

3. Life of Luther, by President McGiffert, 
of Union. 

4. Studies in Christianity, by Professor 
Bowne, late of Boston University. 

5. Modern Pre-Millennialism, by Professor 
Rail, of Garrett. 

6. Outline of Christian Theology, by Dr. 
Clarke, late of Colgate. 

Here again the measure of failure, and 
even its character differs widely, but again 
we will pass by details for the present. 

It will be immediately noticed that no 
books in the critical field are included in 
these lists. The explanation is that in our 
judgment no book in the courses is for criti- 
cal reasons discordant with the constitution- 
al standards of Methodism. There are sev- 
eral books the critical views of which do not 
appeal to this writer personally. But per- 
sonal views are in no measure the basis of 
this criticism. The constitutional standards 
of Methodism define the headlands of faith 
as it has obtained in the Church from the 
beginning. Those headlands of belief are 
adequate to determine the essential Chris- 
tian quality of any man's thought. Beyond 
this general outline is the sphere of private 
judgment. In these matters men can differ 



32 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



and remain properly Christian thinkers. 
Doubtless in this sphere of private judgment 
opinions will be proposed, that, when they 
have been developed and correllated will be 
found to be out of accord with the fixed head- 
lands of Historic Christianity. When this 
appears, then these opinions must be sur- 
rendered. 

One of the things our times needs to dis- 
cover is how to relate liberty and orderli- 
ness. It is quite possible our earth is every 
day moving through spaces never traversed 
by it before, that it is every day exploring 
new vastnesses ; yet its relation to the sun is 
constant. And is not this the analogy of our 
Christian faith of God Incarnate? Our re- 
lation to him, as fallen, lost men, whom he 
has redeemed by the Atonement of his 
cross; to whom we are united by faith and 
the inworking of his supernatural powers; 
whose salvation is forever a relationship of 
justification from the guilt of sin through 
his finished work,— -this relationship is con- 
stant. This is the gospel he gave us through 
the apostles. This relationship, and those 
several truths that define it must be con- 
stant. An opinion that sacrifices this central 
relation, or any of the truths that define and 
secure it is not Christianity, and cannot 
honestly be called by its name. In this body 
of faith the Bible must be preserved as God's 
supernatural revelation, and a conception of 
that revelation must be held that secures the 
Messianic hope and all its great moral, spir- 
itual and redemptive values; but the me- 
chanics, if we might so speak, of this great 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 33 



revelationai movement may be variously con- 
ceived. Personally, we do not for a moment 
accept Dr. Smyth's view of the Old Testa- 
ment, and we feel that we have a right even 
as a layman, to dissent from it, for there are 
men of great scholarship who severely crit- 
icise it ; but it is not clear that his view sac- 
rifices supernatural revelation, or does vio- 
lence to any definition of our established 
standards ; therefore we pass this book by as 
one which diverges from older views not, 
seemingly, upon essentials, but in the unde- 
fined spheres of opinion. 

However, we do think that the Commis- 
sion showed narrowness in putting into the 
course no book expressive of the older opin- 
ions in Old Testament Criticism. Truth is 
not to be determined by counting heads. 
Philosophical currents often determine the 
thinking of an age ; and it often happens that 
it is the few who resist and are right, while 
the many fall in line and are wrong. On 
matters left indeterminate by our standards 
of faith we should have all opinions. On 
matters determined by our standards we 
should have only opinions in harmony with 
those standards. 

One other matter at this point: It is 
doubtless true that the dogma of Darwinism 
has very largely influenced the modern crit- 
ical view of the Old Testament, and it is also 
doubtless true that this dogma is rapidly 
losing its former influence. In the domain of 
exact science it is almost, if not quite, a lost 
cause. After awhile when the collapse of this 
opinion is more fully realized there will 



34 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



probably be a considerable change in critical 
opinions. Again we express the judgment, 
voiced earlier, that the subjective element is 
so large in critical matters that the study 
is hardly entitled to be called a science. But 
if it is kept free from the anti-supernatural 
and anti-Christian philosophical bias it does 
not seem to us that its theories with respect 
to the mechanics of the revelational process 
are a proper subject for credal definition or 
legislative consideration. 

But turning just for a moment again to 
the thirteen books, which do not seem to us 
to fulfill the law of the Church as so exact- 
ly defined at Des Moines : 

Dr. Rail's New Testament History rejects 
the central fact of the New Testament, our 
Lord's clear redemptive purpose; and re- 
duces the Fourth Gospel to a non-apostolic 
writing embodying traditions, and the doc- 
trinal influences of St. Paul's thought. 

The books on Christian Nurture by the edi- 
tors of our Sunday School publications, Dr. 
Luther Weigle, and Dr. George Betts, are all 
useful in their field, but they each fail in the 
same respect. They assume that Christian 
character can be humanly built entirely 
apart from a justifying faith in Christ at the 
point of redemption, and from a supernat- 
ural regenerative work. Certainly they all 
believe in divine help through prayer, but 
this help concerns divine assistance in mat- 
ters of ethical detail, rather than a super- 
natural regenerating work whereby the loss- 
es of the fall are made good. 

Dr. Walker's volume of Church History is 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 35 



openly hostile to Historic Christianity. The 
very fundamental doctrines of our Faith are 
made products of evolution in the centuries 
rather than the gifts to us of Christ through 
his apostles. The Deity and pre-existence 
of Christ is among the doctrines so evolved, 
according to his opinion. His book has also 
a strong naturalistic bias. This bias doubt- 
less has been largely influential in deter- 
mining his opinions. 

Dr. Hyde's book presents a similar opin- 
ion of Christianity. He is openly hostile to 
the historic conception of it, he is bitter in 
his criticism of our common creeds. His 
book seeks to reduce Christianity to the eth- 
ics of love, a conception as remote from His- 
toric Christianity as Judaism is. 

Dr. Hayes in his volume on Sociology as- 
sumes the naturalistic and Darwinian point 
of view. He passes off his own imaginations 
for scientific certainties, reduces conscience 
to a mere unauthoritative product of social 
evolution, a resultant of man's self-seeking 
instincts as modified by social relationships. 
His point of view is antagonistic to His- 
toric Christianity. 

Dr. Gladden's book is written from the 
standpoint of the "New Theology," Its ex- 
pressions of it are only incidental. Apart 
from this defect it is a great volume. 

The Main Points, by Dr. Brown, of Yale, 
is a statement of the familiar New Theologi- 
cal position. It denies the objective Atone- 
ment of the cross, and substitutes salvation 
by faith in the fatherhood of God for justifi- 
cation by faith in the propitiatory work of 



36 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



God in Christ; and both ethically and psy- 
chologically these two conceptions are a uni- 
verse apart. Dr. Brown's position is one of 
these impossible mediating positions that 
sometimes develop. His disciples will be 
compelled to follow his negation on into 
Unitarianism, or else to react toward His- 
toric Christianity. Justification by faith is 
the vital centre of the Christian faith as 
Luther pointed out. The rejection of this 
doctrine will in the long run be fatal to ev- 
ery distinctively Christian item of a man's 
thinking. 

Dr. McGirYert's life of Luther is written 
from Dr. McGiffert's own hostile point of 
view. His antagonism to the Reformation 
attitude toward the Bible prevents him from 
appreciating even its creative power in his- 
tory. 

Bowne's "Studies in Christianity," ex- 
press the same general views as Brown's, 
"The Main Points," mentioned above. It 
departs radically from the very central 
truths of Christianity. 

Professor Rail's second volume in the 
course, his "Modern Pre-Millennialism and 
the Christian Hope," is more baldly destruc- 
tive than his former work. In this volume 
he goes so far as to charge the apostles, 
and even the Master with error, and 1 that 
with respect to a major item both in their 
teaching and in his. If the Church should 
follow Dr. Rail in doubting and correcting 
its Lord, one can easily see that the time will 
speedily come when his authority will be 
surrendered as rationalistic theology has 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 37 



surrendered every other authority, and when 
the Christian Church will become an an- 
archy both of belief and of life. We do not 
believe that this will result, however, for we 
do not believe that Professor Rail can per- 
suade the Church to substitute his opinions 
for the positive declarations of the Lord Je- 
sus Christ. 

The "Outline of Christian Theology," by 
William Newton Clarke, is the recognized 
text-book of a more moderate form of the 
New Theology. The book is very much less 
developed in its radical and rationalistic 
thought than such a book as President 
Hyde's or Professor Walker's. Neverthe- 
less Dr. Clarke's book is halting on the Bi- 
ble, reduces the Atonement to a mere moral 
influence, rejects Justification by Faith and 
other fundamental Christian items of belief. 

This rapid survey of the thirteen books in 
the new Conference Course of Study, which 
set forth views divergent from, or hostile to, 
those defined in the constitution of the Meth- 
odist Church, concludes our initial observa- 
tions. We would like, however, in closing 
to propose this question: Can the Church, 
having put these volumes into the hands of 
young ministers just beginning their theo- 
logical training, have any reason to expect 
that at the end of their training they will 
cherish a robust faith in those sublime doc- 
trines of Historic Christianity and of Meth- 
odism, which are defined and established in 
our constitution, and to which we will then 
pledge them? 

We turn now to these books in detail. We 



38 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



will begin this fuller criticism of them with 
President Hyde's volume, which, as reducing 
Christianity to the mere ethics of love, would 
well represent that type of assault upon 
Christianity, which Professor A. S, Peake 
says, is the most dangerous form of the mod- 
ern attack upon our Holy Religion. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE. 

By William DeWitte Hyde, Pres. of 
Bowdoin College. 

RESIDENT Hyde's book is di- 
vided into five chapters, devo- 
ted, one each, to what he holds 
to 'be the five great philosophies 
of life. These five philosophies 
are: The Epicurean Pursuit of 
Pleasure, Stoic Self-Control by Law, The 
Platonic Subordination of Lower to Higher, 
The Aristotelian Sense of Proportion, The 
Christian Spirit of Love. The very plan of 
the book should put the thorough Christian 
thinker upon his guard, for Christianity is 
not a philosophy, it is much more than a 
philosophy, it has a philosophy. Certainly it 
would be possible to take that philosophical 
truth, or better, those philosophical truths 
that are strongly emphasized in Christiani- 
ty, and compare them with other systems. 
But in doing this the Christian thinker must 
be careful to distinguish between these prin- 
ciples and the whole of Christianity which 
includes in addition a tremendous historical 
personality, and an equally sublime super- 
natural spiritual dynamic. Indeed, so inti- 
mate is the relationship between the histori- 
cal, the dynamic, and the philosophical ele- 
ments of 'Christianity that it may be ques- 
39 




40 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



tioned whether the separate discussion of 
its ethical philosophy can be very illuminat- 
ing. 

In a personal conversation in London, re- 
cently, Professor Peake, of Manchester Col- 
lege, England, was discussing modern cur- 
rents of thought and belief ; and among oth- 
er subjects this very matter of reducing 
Christianity to a mere ethical system was 
mentioned. He said that he looked upon this 
as the most dangerous and destructive form 
of the modern assault upon Christianity. He 
went further, pointing out that the histori- 
cal element was essential to Christianity, and 
asserting that he believed a sufficient and de- 
pendable historical residue would be left af- 
ter Criticism had done its worst. Personal- 
ly, we do not accept the critical findings as 
they are given in Professor Peake's new 
Commentary, but it is most interesting to 
find a professor who, though going a large 
part of the way with modern Criticism, yet 
defends the historical and supernatural ele- 
ments in Christianity. 

In Historic Christianity we have a tre- 
mendous historical movement coming to its 
climax in a great supernatural Incarnation. 
God became man by the womb of the Virgin. 
As Incarnate He died and rose again, mak- 
ing atonement for human sin. And salva- 
tion, during all the Christian centuries, Pro- 
testant and Catholic, has ever been through 
a personal relationship to this atoning work, 
and risen almighty life. This is the Chris- 
tianity of the creeds. This is the Christiani- 
ty of the hymns. This is the Christianity of 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 41 



the Bible. To drop this out of sight, and 
reduce Christianity to the ethics of love is 
not only to make it something other than it 
has ever been before, but it is also to emas- 
culate it, and leave it as helpless to uplift the 
fallen human race as any of the other great 
systems of philosophy. 

The Christianity of this volume by Profes- 
sor Hyde which we are discussing is of just 
such an emasculated type. He does not treat 
the ethic of love as one great Christian ele- 
ment; he reduces the whole of Christianity 
to this one idea. Some of his references to 
the great Christian creeds are openly hos- 
tile. He represents them as winding sheets 
in which simple Christianity — his philoso- 
phy of love — has been buried. 

A few citations at this point will make his 
attitude in this relation abundantly clear. 
Thus on page 290 he writes : 

"Even the Christian Spirit of Love takes 
time to work its moral transformation. The 
tendency of it, however, is steady and strong 
in the right direction; and in due time it 
will conquer the heart and control the action 

of any man who maintains this 

conscious relationship to that love at 
the heart of things which most of us call 
God." He then continues, speaking of Jesus 
as one among those who had the spiritual in- 
sight to see these things, and concludes by 
saying: "Christianity of this simple, vital 
sort is the world's salvation." 

Manifestly the author is referring here, 
when he speaks of Christianity of this sim- 
ple, vital sort, to the ethic of love which is 



42 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



the theme of his chapter, and the particular 
theme of the paragraph above to which the 
relative refers back. It is the philosophy of 
love that is to save the world. It is imme- 
diately after this statement that his most 
baldly hostile paragraph against Historic 
Christianity and the great Christian Creeds 
is located. He says : 

"Christianity of this simple, vital sort is 
the world's salvation. Criticised by ene- 
mies and caricatured by friends; fossil- 
ized in the minds of the aged, and forced on 
the tongues of the immature; mingled with 
all manner of exploded superstition, false 
philosophy, science that is not so, and his- 
tory that never happened; obscured under 
absurd rites; buried in incredible creeds; 
professed by hypocrites ; discredited by sen- 
timentalists ; evaporated by mystics; stereo- 
typed by literalists ; monopolized by sacerdo- 
talists; it has lived in spite of all the grave- 
clothes its unbelieving disciples have tried to 
wrap around it, and holds the keys of eter- 
nal life." 

It would be idle to pretend that these 
words were penned by a devoted believer and 
lover of the Faith once for all delivered. His 
paragraph is lacking even in a fine ethical 
sensitiveness for the feelings of others to 
whom beliefs and institutions that he indis- 
criminately holds up to ridicule are still pre- 
cious. To speak of Christianity as fossil- 
ized in the minds of the aged ; mingled with 
all manner of exploded superstitions, false 
philosophy, science that is not so, and his- 
tory that never happened ; as being buried in 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 43 



incredible creeds; and discredited by senti- 
mentalists, is to manifest a temper of reck- 
less hostility ; it is certainly one very far re- 
moved from friendliness. 

After a little we want to come back again 
to President Hyde's attitude toward the 
great credal statements of our historic faith ; 
but before we do this let us examine a few 
more paragraphs that it may be perfectly 
clear that he is seeking to reduce Christiani- 
ty to a mere system of philosophical ethics. 
Thus on page 278 he is discussing the fail- 
ure of the various philosophical systems, and 
concludes by saying: "And consequently 
these systems fail to work, except with a few 
highly altruistic souls who need no spiritual 
physician." 

(Notice the involved rejection of the fall 
and universal depravity of man in this state- 
ment that there are certain persons so nat- 
urally good that they need no physician.) 
Then having pointed out their common fail- 
ure he goes on to show that Christianity suc- 
ceeds where they failed, and he locates this 
superior power of Christianity in the influ- 
ence of Christ's teaching and example. He 
writes : "He certainly did love all men, and 
care for their happiness as dearly as He 
cared for His own. But this same Christ is 
the Christian's Lord and Master and Friend. 
Yet friendship for Him, the acceptance of 
Him as Lord and Master, is a contradiction 
in terms unless one is at the same time will- 
ing to cultivate His Spirit, which is the 
spirit of service, the spirit which holds the 
happiness and welfare of others just as sa- 



44 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



cred and precious as one's own. He that 
hath not this spirit of Christ is none of His." 
In a sentence, if we are going to be friends 
of Jesus we must accept His philosophical 
principles and try to work them out in our 
lives. But this little ethical imitation of 
Jesus of which the author speaks here is pal- 
try alongside of that powerful mysticism 
which was in the mind of St. Paul when he 
penned the same words. For the author 
Christ is at the most the Teacher and Mas- 
ter, but for the Christian centuries He has 
ever been Redeemer, Savior — All-in-ail. 

One other illustration of this same point 
of view. On page 258 the author writes : 
"Love will not grow in our hearts without 
deep unseen communion with the Spirit of 
Love who is God. To dwell reverently on 
the Infinite Love ; to keep in one's heart a sa- 
cred place where His holy name is adored ; to 
eagerly seek for Love's coming in our hearts, 
in the hearts of all men, and in all the af- 
fairs of the world; to gratefully receive all 
material blessings as gifts for use in Love's 
service; to beseech for ourselves and be- 
stow on others that forgiveness which is 
Love's attitude toward our human frailties 
and failings ; to fortify ourselves in advance 
against the allurements of sense, and the 
base desire to gain good for ourselves at cost 
of evil to others ; to remember that all right 
rule, all true strength, all worthy honour in- 
here in and flow from Love, and Love's Fath- 
er, God, — to do this day by day sincerely and 
simply without formality or ostentation — 
this is to pray and to insure prayer's inevi- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 45 



table answer — a life through which Love 
freely flows to bless both the world and our- 
selves." 

Here once again is Christianity reduced to 
the ethic of love. Christianity without the 
Savior's name or office. Christianity with- 
out the Atonement, without justifying faith, 
without a supernatural work of regenera- 
tion. All these great Christian realities are 
to be replaced by a lifelong effort to com- 
mune with Love and Love's Father, God, and 
to realize Love in one's day-by-day living. 

If this idea of abstract ethics, or this idea 
as clothed and illustrated in Jesus the su- 
preme ethical teacher and life, is all there is 
to Christianity, we would like to ask why 
this idea has been uniformly ineffective and 
the other, that represented by the Christian 
creeds, has been uniformly effective? The 
Roman emperors Titus and Aurelius both 
taught, and, as best they could, exemplified 
the doctrine of love. But their influence 
amounted to nothing for the world. There 
was more real altruism in the religion of 
Israel ihan the modern "liberal" would care 
to admit ; and modern Unitarianism is pledg- 
ed to just this doctrine of love, the very thing 
the author is writing about ; yet both of 
these systems have failed. The Unitarian 
Church is smaller today than when it was 
organized, and in the same time the credal 
Churches have grown more than a hundred- 
fold. If the author is correct, if the creeds 
have been the winding sheets that have 
cramped the Gospel, as he says, then we 
must come to this conclusion, that error 



46 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



works (better than truth : for manifestly the 
items that he sets aside, the historical and 
supernatural, are the very items that have 
made Christianity a powerful factor in our 
civilization. We have a Christian civiliza- 
tion, and a catholic Christian Church today 
just because, true or false, the author's 
ideas have never gotten a hold upon the 
minds of men. And, if we are to judge by 
history, moral and spiritual decline is our 
only outlook should these ideas undermine 
the faith of the people in credal Christiani- 
ty, today. 

But turning, now, to our author's attitude 
toward the historic creeds of the Church. 
On page 242 he writes: "The most sensi- 
tively honest men will more and more de- 
cline to enter the service of the Church, un- 
til subscription to antiquated formulas, long 
since become incredible to the majority of 
well trained scholars, ceases to be required 
either literally, or 'for substance of doc- 
trine/ " No man who is in sympathy with 
Historic Christianity will refer to its great 
credal expressions as "antiquated formulas 
long since become incredible to the majority 
of well trained scholars/' Nor can we for- 
bear to record our amusement at this con- 
stantly recurring boast of the "liberals," 
that they have cornered the brains of the 
world. These men who are so rebellious 
against the authority of the Bible are for- 
ever insisting on the authority of the so- 
called scholarly consensus. Of course, they 
insist both on determining which noses are 
to be counted in making up the consensus, 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 47 



and in doing the counting. And perhaps 
this is very well for them, but we wonder if 
they will ever get sufficiently altruistic in 
their point of view to realize that for the 
rest of us the new authority is quite as ob- 
jective as the Bible was, and vastly less sat- 
isfying. If we must say, verily verily thus 
saith, from the point of view of ninety-nine 
percent of us, it is more satisfying to add, 
"the Lord/* than "the liberals." But no 
matter, go on brothers, the rest of us have 
become accustomed to your humble boasting, 
and it has lost its impressiveness. To tell 
you the blunt truth, we have so often found 
that there was behind it neither facts of 
science nor searching philosophical analysis 
that we have come to look upon it as some- 
thing used in lieu of these. 

But to return to our author. A little 
further down on the same page he demands 
that the "timid and conservative modern ad- 
herents" of Christianity should allow to the 
Christian system the same freedom for in- 
tellectual development that is characteris- 
tic of other philosophical systems. But, 
we remark, is he ignorant of the fact that 
Christianity is the truth of God incarnate? 
Do our "liberal" friends desire to correct 
and improve even the Gospel of the Son of 
God? Christianity is not a philosophical nu- 
cleus, given to men by one Rabbi Jesus. It 
is the Gcspel of supernatural salvation 
brought to men by God made manifest in 
the flesh. If this has come to us it cannot 
be improved upon. Is it not a defect of our 
times, that we are so enamored of our selves, 



48 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



our science and our progress that we have 
no heart left to wonder even at the Incarna- 
tion and the Cross? We and our progress 
are so wonderful to ourselves that we can- 
not sit at the feet of Incarnate Deity even, if 
he happened to have come to an earlier cen- 
tury. ^ No, our age must improve everything, 
or reject it; and we must even improve the 
Gospel of redemption which the Infinite 
himself wrought and gave to us while he 
was manifest among us in flesh. 

This intolerance of the creeds, this insis- 
tence upon intellectual freedom, as of disci- 
ples with the intellectual opinions of an 
earthly master, both of these ideas mark the 
author as one whose point of view is remote 
from Historic Christianity. A Christian, as 
historically understood, is one who is in be- 
lieving contact with the redeeming work and 
dynamic personality of Jesus, and conse- 
quently a certain credal minimum is neces- 
sary both as a qualification for ministerial 
office and for membership in the Christian 
body. But we pass on. 

Still in the same paragraph the author 
charges that the Church is lacking in intel- 
lectual honesty, and that in this respect it 
compares unfavorably with the natural 
sciences. We would reply that this charge is 
both puerile and offensive. Does not the au- 
thor know that personal bias is an inevitable 
part of all intellectual activity? Does he not 
know that science has its dogmas as well as 
religion, and that they are as tenaciously 
held in the former as in the latter? Does he 
not know that many a scientific dogma has 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 49 



been held in the face of facts? Does he not 
know that Darwinism, the very foundation 
and cornerstone of the "liberal" movement, 
is now being held, by those who still hold it, 
in the face of facts ? Does he not know these 
things, and does he not know in addition 
that his own "liberal" allies are in what 
would seem to be a rather compromised po- 
sition, as men who have subscribed to creeds 
they do not believe, and who are taking upon 
themselves responsibilities they do not in- 
tend to meet? 

But more fundamentally' the intellec- 
tual appeal is not the only criterion of truth. 
The appeal to the heart and conscience is 
also a legitimate test. Certainly, to say the 
least, it is just as intellectually honest for 
the Church to refuse to surrender some pre- 
cious item of Christian belief when some un- 
certain scientific opinion has challenged it, 
as it is for the scientist to refuse 
to surrender some scientific theory when 
it is challenged by some newly dis- 
covered facts. Thus, the consensus of so- 
called scholarly opinion may be against the 
resurrection of Jesus, but the Church has 
tremendous reasons for holding this truth. 
In the first place scholarly opinion can allege 
nothing' against it but a personal bias of nat- 
uralism, and apart from this bias the resur- 
rection is so well attested that no capable 
mind would for a moment call it in question. 
But in addition, the Church finds in the res- 
urrection tremendous moral and heart 
values. If Darwinism has been suffered to 
live in the scientific world without any foun- 



50 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



dation in fact, and in the face of accumula- 
ting evidence against it, just because it is 
valuable as a means of helping the mind to 
construe the complexity of the present-day 
universe — if Darwinism, we say, has been 
suffered in the scientific world for such a 
reason, shall the Church be charged with in- 
sincerity or intellectual dishonesty because 
it does not surrender some precious value 
of its Gospel at the instance of its modern 
critics ? 

It is high time that men who boast of their 
intellectual attainments begin to think thor- 
oughly. The current assault upon Historic 
Christianity and its creeds does not arise in 
any facts of science, or in any sure analysis 
of philosophy. It arises wholly in a personal 
bias of unbelief. A future generation will 
call it by its proper name, infidelity. The 
dogma of Darwinism, and its related concep- 
tion, naturalism, is the foundation upon 
which the so-called "liberal" current in mod- 
ern thought is resting. Neither of these 
ideas is either proved or provable. As a fact 
Darwinism is about surrendered in scientific 
circles, though some of the "well trained 
scholars" do not seem to know this. But 
resting upon these two assumptions a 
superstructure of belief intensely hostile to 
Historic Christianity has been erected. It is 
boastful as Deism was boastful, in its day. It 
loudly threatens to discredit and destroy 
credal Christianity as Deism did. When the 
Church understands this new age current 
clearly enough to call it by its proper name, 
and to refuse it unqualifiedly, there will be 
an end of it. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 51 



But in conclusion : a book that holds up to 
bitter ridicule the credal forms and historic 
beliefs and institutions of Christianity, that 
demands intellectual freedom to develop and 
alter the truths of Christ such as is given to 
the teachers of human philosophies, a book 
that charges religion with intellectual dis- 
honesty and that compares it unfavorably in 
this respect with modern science, a book that 
pares away the whole rich historical and 
supernatural content of Christianity reduc- 
ing it to the mere ethic of love — such a book 
is not adapted to be a text-book for the train- 
ing of ministers, whatever may be its other 
excellcences. It certainly comes very far 
from being in full and hearty accord with 
the credal foundations of Historic Chris- 
tianity. We are glad to record our apprecia- 
tion of many excellences in the book. If it had 
been written on a frankly Unitarian basis, 
we would have no particular criticism of it, 
other than to point out its utter inadequacy 
to meet the sin problem of the world. But as 
using the Christian name, as intolerantly 
criticising true Christianity, as being offered 
as a text-book for the inculcation of Historic 
Christianity — upon this foundation the book 
would seem to us to be utterly impossible. 



CHAPTER VI. 



STUDIES IN CHRISTIANITY BY BORDEN P. 
BOWNE. 

NE attitude of mind that we 
insist upon for ourselves in all 
this theological discussion, and 
that we are anxious to give ex- 
pression to early in this series 
of critical reviews is that of 
Christian charity. For this reason we are 
placing the review of Professor Bowne's 
book among the first, since our personal af- 
fection for him as a philosophical thinker, 
and our belief in him as a Christian heart 
will make it both fitting and necessary that 
we should distinguish Bowne's Christian 
personality from his defective book, and his 
strength as a philosopher from his weak- 
ness as a theologian. 

Here are three propositions that careful 
thought will show to be true. We will not 
seek to prove them, but will simply set them 
down. First, a man may hold right heart 
attitudes on the basis of defective opinions. 
The opposite is also possible. Nevertheless, 
right opinions are a great aid to right heart 
attitudes. Indeed, for the social body as a 
whole, and in the long run, opinions will de- 
termine heart attitudes ; it is the individual 
alone who finds some large measure of sep- 
aration between these two. It is on the basis 
of these facts that we would give the judg- 
52 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 53 



ment that the Church can afford to be very 
tolerant of defective opinions in private life, 
but must insist upon its established stand- 
ards in every teaching office. 

Second, the Christian theologian must 
have one qualification in addition to those 
which are required for the philosopher, he 
must have a robust faith in the Christian 
Bible, it must stand to him as the sufficient 
rule both of faith and practice. The Chris- 
tian theologian has thus a considerable body 
of truth in addition to those intuitions of the 
mind which he shares with the philosopher. 
And this larger body of truth of the theolo- 
gian is not verifiable in the intuitions of the 
mind. The heart and conscience give it some 
confirmation, certainly, but the heart and 
conscience are both abnormal through sin, so 
that their reaction is of questionable authori- 
ty. We w r ould put it this way : The heart and 
conscience as energized and elevated by some 
deep experience will confirm the Biblical 
revelation. And this judgment of the ele- 
vated and ennobled conscience, when regard- 
ed broadly through the years adequately es- 
tablish the authority of the Christian's Bi- 
ble. We would pause here long enough to 
point out that faith has here an objective au- 
thority that it can unhesitatingly pass on 
from generation to generation as the stand- 
ard of truth and duty. And that while this 
standard is not subject to the vagaries of 
individual subjectivities, it is nevertheless 
being ever anew confirmed by the elevated 
consciousness of the Christian community. 

And third, if a philosopher, whose opinion 



54 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



was halting at the point of the Christian's 
Bible, should undertake to write theology, we 
would expect to find him cutting off the high- 
est peaks of Christian truth, and settling 
bade toward the ethical monotheism of Is- 
rael. 

These three propositions, which we offer 
without discussion are the basis for our own 
understanding of the problem of Professor 
Bowne's Christian heart, magnificent intel- 
lect, and divergent opinions. Bowne has a 
halting attitude toward the Bible, and con- 
sequently his thinking is defective from the 
Christian point of view by the loss of the 
biblical contribution. He keeps the essen- 
tial deity of Christ because his own heart is 
so entwined here that he will not let his in- 
tellectualism sacrifice it. But he constructs 
a system of belief in which this unique and 
sublime figure has no place. He reduces 
Christianity to a body of theistic ethics in 
which Christ stands simply as the supreme 
teacher and example. He has no stupendous 
atoning sacrifice, no all-sufficient redemp- 
tion ; he has nothing beyond Judaism except 
the Sermon on the Mount and the example 
of Jesus. 

Doubtless the question will be in some 
one's mind, how then does it happen that 
Professor Bowne was acquitted of heresy 
charges before the New York East Confer- 
ence? We make this answer: It is one 
thing to say that a teacher is heretical, and 
another to say that a certain book from his 
pen comes decidedly short of being in har- 
mony with Methodist standards. It was 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 55 



Bowne, not his book, that was on trial then, 
and if Bowne, as it is reported that he did, 
professed belief in our established standards 
this profession was his sufficient defense. 
But not to spend any more time with these 
secondary matters, let us turn to the book it- 
self. 

First, with respect to the Bible. Bowne 
writes on pages 24, 25, "The great signifi- 
cance of the Christian revelation, then, does 
not lie in its contribution to ethics or to 
speculative theology, though it has done 
something in tooth of these realms ; but rather 
in this, that back of the mystery and uncer- 
tainty of our own lives, .... it reveals God, 
the almighty friend and lover of men." The 
meaning of this passage, as any reader fa- 
miliar with the whole current of Bowne's 
thinking will see, is that the Bible is a divine 
revelation only in its great main movement 
rather than in all its ethical and doctrinal 
details. He says exactly this on page 40, 
where after repudiating the idea that the 
Bible is infallible in detail, or even in every 
detail of its conception of God, he goes on 
and affirms that the biblical "revelation con- 
sists in what we have learned concerning 
•God, his character, and his purposes; and 
that revelation is mainly made by a great 
historical movement. Of this movement the 
Bible is at once the product and the histori- 
cal and literary record. The truth of the 
revelation depends on the general truth of 
the history, and not at all on the infallibility 
of the record." And similarly, again, on page 
44 : "Christianity does not affirm an infalli- 



56 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



ble Bible, but a self-revealing God. It holds 
that God was in the historical movement out 
of which the Bible came, and in it in such a 
way that out of it we have won a supremely 
valuable knowledge of God. Whatever else 
was or was not there God was there guiding 
the movement for His own self-revelation. 
This is the true and the only Christian faith 
in this matter." 

The Bible then, for Bowne, is scarcely, if 
anything more than a comparatively accur- 
ate record of the divine providences that 
have over-ruled in the world's history. And 
these providences are brought about not by 
extraordinary divine revelations through 
common men so much as by ordinary revela- 
tions through men of genius. On page 83 
Bowne speaks of the liberal opinion which 
says the "Bible is no revelation by God to 
man but a revelation by man to man," and 
criticizes it in this way : "God is no longer 
so easily ruled out by a verbal antithesis. . . 
In the human world God is less a with- work- 
er than a through-worker, but he works 
nevertheless to will and to work of his own 
good pleasure." 

This opinion would seem to reduce revela- 
tion about to the work of human genius in in- 
terpreting God. We say, about, for Bowne 
does not say that God never is a with-work- 
er, but that he is less a with- than a through- 
worker, and on page 81 he does speak of the 
Holy Spirit as working on the minds and 
hearts of holy men. But on page 80 he defi- 
nitely rejects "the old view of the Bible," as 
an opinion discarded and disproved ; nor can 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 57 



one without assuming a colossal ignorance 
on Bowne's part apply this remark to the 
verbal inspiration theory exclusively. Ver- 
bal inspiration is one out of several theories 
that the Church has offered to explain its 
doctrine that the Bible is the only and suffi- 
cient rule both of faith and practice. The 
view that the Bible is the absolute standard 
of moral and religious truth is the view that 
Bowne, if he was intelligent, was referring 
to. 

But finally, at this point, we would call at- 
tention to the fact that on page 81 Bowne 
tells us that the men through whom the di- 
vine revelation came did not understand it. 
We quote his words: "We see that it was 
conditioned by the imperfections of the men 
to whom it came. They did not under- 
stand it. They had no such conception of 
the divine meaning as we possess. God is 
the great exegete, and he makes clear now 
what he meant then, but the men in the 
midst of the process had no clear vision." 
Now, had the author been an exponent of 
any form of a fully supernatural divine reve- 
lation this passage would not have been sig- 
nificant. But we protest, that when men 
speak only by natural power, when they 
speak only that which they understand of 
God that in so far as they did not under- 
stand Him they misrepresented Him. If a 
prophet was the mouthpiece for the divine 
intelligence, then he might be said to under- 
stand only partly, or even not at all, and yet 
his message have remained truth ; but when 
men of natural insight speak what they do 



58 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



not understand about God and His purposes 
they speak what is not so. The author's 
theory of the Bible reduces it to a patch- 
work of truth and error, that must set up the 
individual soul to separate for itself the one 
from the other. 

The errancy, which Bowne thus gets into 
his Bible he uses constantly in his other 
chapters: for he rejects the biblical concep- 
tion of sin, of atonement in the propitiatory 
sacrifice of Christ, of justification by faith, 
and other great Christian truths. Indeed 
Bowne is, as Professor Faulkner points out 
in his book, ' 'Modernism and the Christian 
Faith," a strong "liberal." 

With respect to sin the author is an evolu- 
tionist. Man sins, because the animal in him 
is as yet not outgrown. And God's attitude 
is not one of burning condemnation that can 
only forgive through a tremendous act of 
self-propitiation, but is rather one of com- 
placent tolerance. He knows that man must 
pass through these mistakes in coming up to 
higher and nobler spiritual levels. The 
biblical idea that sin is not only an act of the 
will but a deep nature, a universal depravity 
he rejects as a fiction. His own words will 
make his position fully clear. 

His evolutionary position comes out on 
page 145. "Our development," he says, "be- 
gins on a submoral plane. That was not first 
which was spiritual, but that which was ani- 
mal. . . . Whatever may have been true of 
the first man, this word of Paul's is true of 
his descendants ; and the reported perform- 
ances of even the first man would not seem 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 59 



to set him very high in the scale of develop- 
ment. By consequence, sin itself in many of 
its aspects is a relic of the animal not yet 
outgrown, a result of the mechanism of ap- 
petite and impulse and reflex action for 
which the proper inhibitions are not yet de- 
veloped; and only slowly does it grow into 
the consciousness of itself as evil." 

Our great professor, and we use the de- 
scription sincerely, had evidently thought 
little about sin, and had studied but super- 
ficially the profound biblical teaching con- 
cerning it. Even the Genesis account, which 
Bowne thinks is rather primitive, is pro- 
found compared with his thinking here. In 
Genesis it is clear that the genius of the first 
temptation was not physical but spiritual* It 
was chiefly because the fruit of the tree was 
desirable to make wise, because it would 
make man self-sufficient in wisdom, because 
it would gratify his desire for self-exaltation 
even to equality with God, that he chose it. 
The problem of sin is scarcely animal at all. 
It is largely spiritual. The real motive of 
sin is utterly beyond the beast. It is man's 
sense of self, his towering consciousness of 
self blinding him to all beside that is the 
spring of his sin. That he expresses this 
spirit of self-intoxication in physical excess 
is but incidental; it is the unbalanced sense 
of self that is the power of evil in him. 

But we move on. On page 220-221, Bowne 
expresses bis view of God's easy tolerance of 
sin, thus: "They are (that is men are) to 
pass from the unconsciousness of nature and 
the ignorance of childhood to the conscious 



60 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



recognition and acceptance of the divine will ; 
and then they are to go on with God in deep- 
ening sympathy and growing fellowship for- 
ever. This is God's eternal thought for men, 
and it is not modified in any way in its essen- 
tial nature by the fact of sin. Of course 
much of what we call sin is error and mis- 
take, arising from the ignorance of men who 
have to feel their way. And sin itself, as we 
find it among men, is largely the wilfulness 
of freedom which has not learned self-con- 
trol, rather than any deliberate choice of 
evil. Ignorance and untrained wilfulness 
abound, and both alike must be removed, or 
they will increase, and lead to disaster. . . . 
But during the process we must not indulge 
in extravagant condemnation by bringing in 
the categories of abstract theological ethics." 
One is moved to compare this with Paul's 
conception, in Romans, of God giving man 
up to the reprobate mind, and of His forgiv- 
ing sin, either before or since Christ, only 
wih a view to his supreme atoning work; 
or with the Savior's own burning denuncia- 
tion of sin, and his conception that his 
death was a ransom for many. But doubt- 
less, Bowne would regard these ideas as a 
part of the dross of human mistake, with 
which the pure gold of God's fatherly love 
was mixed in the f revelational process. The 
familiar way of getting rid of these ideas is 
to make them corruptions, either by Jewish 
or Roman conceptions, of the sublime truth 
of God's perfect fatherly love which not even 
the apostles had yet seen, and which, if Je- 
sus taught it, they afterward corrupted with 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 61 



these additions. But we must move on from 
the author's conception of sin, and set forth 
his view of salvation. 

Bowne has no smallest appreciation of the 
Christian truth that Christ died to make 
atonement for man's sin. To him this view 
is utterly artificial. Now anyone who has 
done any deep thinking at this point can 
easily understand Bowne. He came up 
against the surface difficulties of the Chris- 
tian view, and did not have a sufficiently ro- 
bust faith in the Bible to hold him steady un- 
til he worked deeper. It sounds very reason- 
able to say that the Father's love needed no 
atonement, and that God forgives as a hu- 
man father would, and that God needed not 
to be reconciled to sinners, never having felt 
estrangement. But these statements are all 
on the surface, and they do not touch the 
deeper realities of moral order in which the 
Bible moves. But from the beginning, this 
doctrine of propitiation and atonement has 
been preached as the very central doctrine 
of Christianity. Every great epoch in the 
Church's life has seen this truth supremely 
emphasized. The Reformation and the Wp§r 
leyan revival both alike put supreme stress 
here. Is it likely that the centuries as well 
as the Bible are mistaken? Is it not won- 
derful that this so-called error has been su- 
premely fruitful in Christian history? But 
this is exactly the position we are forced in- 
to by Bowne and the other liberals. 

There is a sentence on page 160 that makes 
his position indubitably clear. He says: 
"How then are the sins of the world to be 



62 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



taken away? This question in a forensic 
sense we dismiss altogether as being ficti- 
tious." 

Similarly on page 162 he says the same: 
'The Redeemer's work . . . was not a ficti- 
tious haggling with abstract and fictitious 
justice. It was Infinite Love going forth to 
seek and to save the lost. It was the father 
of the prodigal going in search of his boy. 
It was the Good Shepherd giving His life for 
the sheep; not of course at the demand of 
justice, but at the instance of divine love. 
This is the true vicarious ness of love, of 
sympathy, of the living moral reason., not an 
abstract and fictitious vicariousness which 
no one can understand or find any place for 
in an unsophisticated conscience." Of course, 
the author uses offensive language to dis- 
credit the view he is rejecting. But such 
ugly words as "haggling," and "fictitious jus- 
tice" cannot blind the careful thinker to the 
fact that Bowne is throwing away the bibli- 
cal truth that Christ made atonement, satis- 
faction, propitiation, expiation for the 
guilt of our sin, — and we would point out 
that these are New Testament words. 

But to continue, the author goes on, and 
interprets still further the work of Christ as 
God's sympathetic suffering with man. But 
notice that the suffering is always something 
that is incidental to His effort to win men 
from sin. It is not a moral end divinely 
purposed and borne on our behalf. "There is 
no provision made. . . . for letting sinners 
off," says Bowne. Later he asks, "And is 
this all there is in the atonement?" And 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 63 



answers: "In reply, we say we no longer 
care to use the word atonement, as it has be- 
come misleading or uncertain through long 
association with doubtful theological theo- 
ries." 

One further reference at this point of re- 
demption. He says on page 228: "Conver- 
sion, then, is a turning from the wrong road 
into the right one. It is not to be under- 
stood in ... a theological sense, as imply- 
ing some difficult forensic adjustment in the 
courts of heaven whereby the antithesis of 
justice and mercy is happily mediated." 

In the light of these passages it is useless 
to deny that Bowne was utterly out of sym- 
pathy with the Christian doctrine of propi- 
tiation in the cross of Jesus, and its comple- 
mentary truth, justification by faith. In- 
deed his constant caricaturing of them would 
seem to suggest that he had never given to 
them any deep and thoughtful attention. 

But no matter, in spite of our professor 
and his really great learning these truths 
stand and will stand. The second of our 
Methodist Articles of Religion defines 
Christ's work as that of reconciling His 
Father to us, and the twentieth defines His 
cross as a redemption, propitiation and sat- 
isfaction for all sin, both original and actual, 
and every other branch of the Christian 
Church has its similar formulations. 

But once again to the author — his view of 
the new birth is about as halting as those 
we have examined. Here are a few pas- 
sages: 

On page 231 he says : "The importance of 



64 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



conversion in the Christian sense of the term 
cannot 'be overestimated. But the popular 
thought is not Christian. For it the test of 
conversion is about this: Have they had 
some rhapsodic experience or some great 
emotional rapture? Have strange and extra- 
ordinary psychological events taken place in 
their consciousness? If not, then they may 
be 'moral/ but they are not converted. 
Probably even yet many churches could be 
found where the serious purpose to lead a 
religious life in reverent dependence on God 
for help would be a far more doubtful proof 
of conversion than would be furnished by 
some emotional ecstasy." 

Again on page 233 is this : "The emphasis 
on conversion as a turning toward God on 
the part of those who are turned away from 
him in lives of wickedness cannot be over- 
done; but the emphasis on conversion as a 
special emotional experience with striking 
psychological attendants is illiteracy both 
Scriptural and religious. ,, 

We give two other illustrations of his 
point of view. The first is on page 255. 
''Love itself abides in the will rather than 
in the feeling, and its distinguishing mark 
consists in the set purpose to please and to 
serve. And this is true of our love for God. 
It is to be found in the consecration of the 
life and the devotion of the will; not in 
ebullitions of the sensibilities/but in the fixed 
purpose to please and serve. If along with 
this the heart should be 'strangely warmed,' 
there is no objection; but after all the root 
of the matter must be found in the life of de= 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 65 



votion and service." And then the other, the 
last, on the next page. He is still discussing 
the idea of emotion as an attendant of the 
experience of conversion, and says: "A fre- 
quent consequence of this error ... is that 
the attention of the inquirer is diverted from 
the central and essential thing, the surren- 
der of the will and life to God, and fixed upon 
having an experience. . . . Thus the voli- 
tional and ethical element, which is essential, 
is subordinated to a passive and emotional 
element, which in any case is only a non-es- 
sential attendant of religious consecration, 
and which in many cases is purely patho- 
logical." 

The mistakes of Bowne's thinking are so 
numerous here, from the Christian point of 
view, that we are at a loss to know where to 
begin. In the first place no Christian leader 
ever stresses the emotional expectation, but 
always the faith act. Bowne ignores wholly 
the faith act, because he has no justification 
by faith in his system. He knows nothing 
but a God assisted self-dedication to duty 
and service. But this is losing the New 
Testament and going back into the Old. But 
we cannot treat separately every mistake of 
the author in these quotations, let us make a 
list of our criticisms, adding some brief, 
hasty comments as we go along. 

1. He repudiates the familiar distinction 
between the moral man and the saved man. 

2. He grounds the need of conversion in 
acquired bad habits and false sets of the will, 
rather than in the natural depravity of the 
human life as Jesus said: "That which is 



66 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



born of the flesh is flesh." It was not Nico- 
demus' acquired habits, but the spiritual in- 
adequacy of nature's start that was wrong 
with him. 

3. He locates love in the will; whereas 
every one knows that love is always an emo- 
tion before it can be a purpose cf loyalty. 

4. He belittles Wesley's experience of a 
heart strangely warmed in comparison with 
his purpose of consecration and obedience. 
And yet history proves him false in this, for 
Wesley had had the purpose of loyalty 
through more than a decade of practical use- 
lessness. But the incoming of emotion was 
in him the beginning of power. 

5. He utterly misses the fact that at the 
heart of every powerful experience of con- 
version is a wonderful sense of the divine 
come near with all sufficient pardoning 
grace. And whatever may be the professor's 
abstract theories to the contrary this expe- 
rience, either as an emotion, or as a meta- 
physical work deeper even than emotion, is 
mighty to the conquest of sin. The Chris- 
tian centuries with one voice proclaim the 
distinction between human resolution, even 
resolution supported by certain prayers for 
assistance, and the mighty experience of re- 
generation. 

6. As we said sometime back he seems to 
be unconscious that the central emphasis of 
conversion is the act of self -abandoning 
faith. Hearts are not converted by self-con- 
secration. The beginning of conversion is in 
an act of self-abandoning faith that cries 
out: 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 67 



"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in Thee." 
We conclude by frankly admitting the diffi- 
culty of our position, as venturing to urge 
severe criticism against one of the foremost 
philosophical minds of our times. But our 
defense is apparent. We have kept close to 
the Bible and the Christian centuries, from 
both of which Bowne departs. His Chris- 
tianity is a product of his own unaided rea- 
son. From history he has accepted but two 
things, the divine Christ a.nd the ethics and 
Kingdom of God. About these, by the pow- 
er' of his reason, he has built a religion that 
is nobler than Judaism by so much as the 
truth of Christ is grander than that of the 
prophets; but every sublimity of Historic 
Christianity is wanting in it. It is ethical 
monotheism with the figure of Christ in the 
centre as its chief teacher and supreme ex- 
ample. It is this and no more. It is utterly 
without value as a gospel for lost men who 
know in bitter experience the awful guilt and 
battle of sin. From Bowne's book such 
hearts will turn away with the cry of Mag- 
dalene at the sepulchre, "They have taken 
away my Lord, and I know not where they 
have laid him." 



CHAPTER VII. 



CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY. 

HILD Psychology and Religious 
Pedagogy is represented in the 
Course of Study ! by three vol- 
umes. Professor Luther Wei- 
gle's "The Pupil and the Teach- 
er/' Dr. H. H. Meyer's, "Graded 
ed Sunday School in Principle and Practice," 
and Dr. George H. Betas' "How to Teach 
Religion." 

These three volumes present to the reader 
a great many of the newer facts about child 
life. They show him the child mind. They 
analyze and systematize the various methods 
of approaching his mind, and of making 
deep impressions upon it. They are rich 
with many useful suggestions. And for all 
this the Church has only a cordial welcome 
and a warm gratitude. 

But in addition to these things that are 
commendable these 'books all alike fail in one 
respect, namely, they do not seek to lead 
lost souls to justifying faith in the all-suffi- 
cient Savior. They have a different concep- 
tion of natural life from that which Christ 
and his apostles taught, and they seek to 
bring men to salvation by a different road 
from that which Christ laid down. Jesus 
said, "That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit," and he said this as the ground of 
68 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 69 



his other statement, "Except a man be born 
again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

We are not under any necessity of argu- 
ment at this point ; from the point of view of 
Historic Christianity and of Methodism ev- 
ery Christian is a justified and regenerated 
sinner. Doubtless there are certain opin- 
ions in science that are hostile to this Chris- 
tian position. But the opinion of a scient- 
ist, or even of a hundred scientists, is a very 
different thing from a scientific fact. No 
Christian belief can be held for a moment 
when real scientific facts invalidate it. But 
in two thousand years of faith no single item 
of fundamental Christian belief has been 
thus invalidated, and we do not need to 
tremble now. 

There is great need for clear thinking at 
just this point. We need to discriminate be- 
tween the established results of science, and 
the personal beliefs of scientists. When it 
comes to beliefs the soul has its own criteria ; 
and the Christian centuries will show that 
the beliefs of the soul are more reliable 
than those of the intellect. 

But the issues involved in the criticism of 
these books are among the most central in 
the whole field of the present day theological 
discussion, and so before turning to the texts 
of these books in detail let us freshen our 
grasp upon the great central truths of our 
faith. 

The fundamental fact of Historic Chris- 
tianity is the fall of man and the resulting 
racial condition of depravity. The whole 
redemptive program is provided to meet this 



70 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



root condition, Christ was incarnate into 
a race that is sinful by nature. He died to 
make satisfaction for its weight of guilt. He 
lives, the fount of new life for whomsoever 
will. Salvation consists in a vital union with 
Christ, that is entered into by a humble self- 
abandoning faith in his Atonement as the 
answer to all guilt, and in his omnipotence 
as the answer to all impotence either of nat- 
ural sin or of acquired habit. St. Paul 
splendidly phrases this union in the words, 
"Christ in you the hope of glory." In this 
divine program of salvation the human part 
is, above everything else, to exercise and to 
maintain the attitude of faith toward Christ 
as at once justifier and regenerator. The 
sinner's first experience waits upon his ex- 
ercising such faith. His abiding experi- 
ence is ever conditioned upon his continuing 
to exercise it; and the inner richness of his 
experience in Christ will be in proportion 
to the richness of this faith in its personal 
commitment and ethical quality. 

Thus faith may be ethically superficial. 
It may look upon forgiveness as a matter-of- 
course and trust, what it believes to be, a 
certain amenable fatherliness in God. Such 
a faith, manifestly, falls far short of full 
Christian faith, yet God can do something 
for a soul in response to such a faith, though 
he cannot do all his great renewing and 
sanctifying work. He can only do this for a 
soul when it has entered into fellowship with 
the awful reaches of God's redeeming ethi- 
cal love in the cross of Jesus. 

The genius of sin is not animal tendencies, 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 71 



but a certain deep-seated intoxication of 
self. The natural heart of man is proud, 
self-glorious, self-absorbed. Doubtless train- 
ing can do much to refine us and to teach us 
how to govern our animal natures, but the 
cure of man's spiritual depravity, of his self- 
intoxication, of his self-absorption, of his 
eagerness for self in freedom, in glory, in 
independence, — the cure of this can only be 
wrought by the supernatural salvation of 
God. There is a fine passage in John Wes- 
ley's sermon on, "Justification by Faith. ,, He 
is trying to answer why God has made jus- 
tifying faith the condition of man's salva- 
tion, and he says: "One reason, however, 
we may humbly conceive, of God's fixing this 
condition of justification .... was to hide 
pride from man. Pride had already destroy- 
ed the very angels of God, had cast down a 
third part of the stars of heaven. It was like- 
wise in great measure owing to this, when 
the tempter said, 'Ye shall be as gods,' that 
Adam fell from his own steadfastness, and 
brought sin and death into the world. It was 
therefore an instance of wisdom worthy of 
God, to appoint such a condition of recon- 
ciliation for him and all his posterity, as 
might effectually humble, might abase them 
to the dust. And such is faith. It is pe- 
culiarly fitted for his end : for he that Com- 
eth unto God by this faith, must fix his eye 
singly on his own wickedness, on his guilt 
and helplessness, without having the least 
regard to any supposed good in himself, to 
any virtue or righteousness whatsoever. He 
must come as a mere sinner, inwardly and 



72 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



outwardly, self-destroyed and self-con- 
demned, bringing nothing to God but un- 
godliness only, pleading nothing of his own 
but sin and misery. Thus it is, and thus 
alone, when his mouth is stopped, and he 
stands utterly guilty before God, that he 
can look unto Jesus as the whole and sole 
propitiation for his sins. Thus only can he 
be 'found in him/ and receive the righteous- 
ness which is of God by faith ' 99 (The last 
page in the fifth of John Wesley's standard 
sermons.) 

Wesley shows here a deep understanding 
of sinful nature. He knew coarse sins and 
he knew that coarseness was but incidental. 
He knew that the genius of sin was deeper. 
He knew that sin was in its essence a thing 
of the spirit, not of the animal appetites. 
How profoundly, too, he has penetrated and 
laid bare the inner philosophy of salvation. 
God is not struggling with bad habits, and 
coarse vices, but with a deep spiritual self- 
intoxication, a self-obsession, a pride that 
makes social life constantly difficult and al- 
most impossible. And so he humbles man; 
he shows him his deep inward ruin, until his 
sense of guilt and shame presses him upon 
his face, and all his glory of self is drained 
out of him. Then humbled, he exalts him. 

But to return to Wesley's conception of 
Christian faith as he uses it in this passage. 
One can analyze in it three great attitudes. 
First, there is a surrendering to the truth of 
one's sense of sin and guilt and shame. Sec- 
ond, there is a deep moral eagerness that is 
broadened into a great personal surrender 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



73 



to Christ as Master and Lord. And third, 
there is a wonderful self -entrusting to him : 
his propitiation to meet our guilt; his all 
sufficiency to meet our every need. And to 
this self-abandoning, self-yielding, self-en- 
trusting faith Christ responds. There is a 
supernatural work, and the believer knows 
that he has passed from death unto life. This 
is justification by faith. 

Under wise Christian instruction entrance 
into this experience will generally be, we be- 
lieve, crisial in form. But we are not in- 
sisting upon the crisis. What we are insist- 
ing upon is that every soul be brought to 
recognize its deep moral need, and be led on 
to exercise faith in Christ in the full New 
Testament sense analyzed above. Again we 
affirm that to every measure and quality of 
faith God will respond in some gracious 
work; 'but God can only perform His full, 
rich, redeeming and sanctifying work in re- 
sponse to that whole rich Christian faith in 
Christ which appropriates him as at once 
justifier and regenerator. 

Now suppose we drop the idea of "saving 
faith" altogether, and substitute for it a 
mere surrender of the will to Christ, a con- 
secration of self to work with him for one's 
fellowmen ; is this latter idea the full equiva- 
lent of the former? Manifestly it is not. In 
the first place there is no emptying out of 
pride, and of a man's whole glory of self. 
In the second place there is no wondrous 
uniting to Christ, no such union with Him 
as could express itself in any of St. Paul's 
great mystical phrases. In the third place 



74 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



there is no ethically satisfying handling of 
the question of guilt. Such a self-dedica- 
tion to Christ's Kingdom is a worthy act, a 
noble act, but as compared with Christian 
saving faith it is in every way superficial. 
Bring it to the test of a guilty sinner's 
heart upon his death-bed, and its utter in- 
adequacy becomes immediately apparent. It 
is the glory of Christ's gospel that it is fit- 
ted to man's lost condition. No matter the 
past, no matter any past, no matter any past 
guilt or present impotency— -Christ is suffi- 
cient. Wesley phrased it nobly at his dying 
when he said : Nothing that I have done 
will bear looking at ; this is my only hope — 
''I the chief of sinners am, 
But Jesus died for me." 
And he who would possess such an all- 
sufficiency in Christ cannot have any meas- 
ure of self-sufficiency. He who would have 
such an all-confidence toward Christ cannot 
have any measure of self-confidence. He 
must be able to cry out with St. Paul, that 
everything of self-attainment he reckons as 
refuse and dung, and cherishes only one 
passion — to be in Christ. The centre of his 
whole being must swing from self to Christ. 
Christ must more than master his will; He 
must fill his whole being. Self-glory must 
be gone until Christ alone is glory. Self- 
sufficiency must be gone, and Christ must be 
unto him wisdom, righteousness, sanctifica- 
tion and redemption. Christ must fill his 
love until his day-by-day experience is, "The 
love of Christ constraineth me." Christ 
must possess him until neither his own con- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



75 



science nor the everlasting Throne of God's 
righteousness can sense a separation be- 
tween, and Christ, and he in Christ, stands 
justified complete. 

This, in rapid outline, is the Christian 
Gospel, and has been the Christian Gospel 
through two thousand years. This is the 
Gospel that is defined in our Articles of Re- 
ligion, and expressed in our hymns; but 
these ideas are almost totally wanting in the 
books under discussion. They have no such 
sense of a race-wide depravity, no such sense 
of a great complete salvation, no such idea 
of justifying faith or purpose of leading 
hearts into it. Instead of these things, 
Christian character is to be manufactured 
by training instincts, inculcating good hab- 
its, implanting noble principles ; and hearts 
are to be led at last to nothing more than a 
great volitional affirmation that they will 
live by these rules and in these ways, and 
that they will dedicate their lives in service 
to their fellow men. Prayer for God's as- 
sistance in doing these things comes in cer- 
tainly; but Buddhists, Mohammedans, Jews, 
Unitarians do the same. A little prayer, or 
even prayer in Jesus' name, cannot trans- 
form mere self -poised ethical theism into the 
Christian Gospel. Ethical theism is man 
working out his own salvation with such as- 
sistance as he can find. The Gospel is man's 
self-despairing and self -abandoning trusting 
of his whole being to Christ to be justified, 
regenerated, sanctified and glorified. And 
at last when the work is done, in the midst of 
the Crystal pavement, before the great 



76 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



white Throne, he stands and cries with 
humble but enraptured heart : "Thine is the 
Kingdom the Power and the Glory unto all 
ages. Amen." 
We turn to the books themselves. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MEYER, WEIGLE AND BETTS. 

N turning, now, to these books in 
the field of religious psychology 
and pedagogy we will begin 
with Dr. H. H. Meyer's, the Edi- 
tor of our Sunday school litera- 
ture. The title of his book is, 
''The Graded Sunday School in Principle 
and Practice." 

This production has the familiar values 
and familiar short-comings of the writings 
of the cultural school. It reduces Christiani- 
ty to a mere system of religious ethics in 
which Christ is simply the great teacher and 
exemplar. Of course Dr. Meyer recognizes 
the Deity of Christ, but that is not the ques- 
tion. Deity in Christ is for the Christian 
system the foundation for a great faith in 
his justifying and regenerating work, and 
these ideas are not used in Dr. Meyer's 
volume. Nor can it be claimed that there is no 
reason why they should appear in an educa- 
tional work, for this is an educational work 
that seeks to make people Christians, and if 
there is no need of any reference to these 
great ideas in such a work, then we must in- 
fer that it is possible to make people Chris- 
tians without leading them to exercise justi- 
fying faith in the redemption of Christ. 
Manifestly, then, we are being present- 
ed with a new type of Christianity, one 
differing widely from that defined in our Ar« 
77 




78 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



tides of Religion, and from that which has 
been preached through two thousand years 
of Christian history. 

On page 50 the author says: "It remains 
here only to emphasize the fact that noble 
and Christlike character normally is the pro- 
duct of growth and training rather than of 
sudden revolution ; that the work of religious 
education is one of preservation and guidance 
rather than of rescue." Here in one sentence 
the author cuts loose from the most funda- 
mental belief of Historic Christianity, that, 
namely, of man's universal depravity, that 
sin brought into the race a great spiritual 
catastrophe. However much of development 
and of training there is in Christian educa- 
tion it is development and training to bring 
us into contact with a tremendous supernat- 
ural salvation by which we are rescued 
from the race- wide consequences of the fall. 
To omit this conception, or to lose it out of 
emphasis is to lose the Christianity of the 
New Testament. 

On the same page Dr. Meyer distinguishes 
between the moral man and the Christian 
saint. He says, "The moral man is the man 
who possesses high standards of personal, so- 
cial and civic life, and who does not deviate 
from his standards. A saint is a man who, in 
addition to high standards has a noble relig- 
ious faith by which he tests these standards 
and controls his life." Is Christianity, then, 
nothing but ethical standards plus a religious 
motive? Did St. Paul so express it in the 
New Testament? In Philippians where he 
contrasts the moral man and the Christian 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 79 



saint there is a universe between the two 
ideas. He says the things that he had once 
counted gain, as a moral man, he now reck- 
ons as refuse, dung, that he might know 
Christ. One cannot miss the difference here 
between St. Paul and the author. But again 
on page 16 he refers the student to Kirkpat- 
rick's "Fundamentals of Child Study," and to 
Coe's, "The Spiritual Life," yet both of these 
writers are openly hostile to Historic Chris- 
tianity both in respect of the fall of man, de- 
pravity and regeneration. Kirkpatrick is a 
Darwinian, making depravity nothing but 
the traits of animal life not yet outgrown. 
Of course this view is morally superficial, 
scientifically without foundation, and from 
the standpoint of Christianity, revolution- 
ary. 

On page 41 Christ is appreciated as the 
supreme ideal of life. Noble lives and char- 
acters are to be presented to the developing 
child mind as a background for the presenta- 
tion of "the crystal life and character of Je- 
sus, and a setting for the personal ideal of 
perfect love and service." We have no crit- 
icism of this, except that it is pitifully inad- 
equate. The same idea is again developed 
on pages 43-44 where the Bible is apprecia- 
ted and the supreme worth of the teachings 
of Christ is recognized both in respect of his 
words and works and life. Again we have no 
criticism save that we nowhere find anything 
larger, we nowhere find the great redemptive 
conceptions that are central in Christianity. 

On page 51 the author describes mature 
Ghristian character, and there is no slightest 



80 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



hint of St. Paul's sublime mysticism, Christ 
in me to will and to do of his own good 
pleasure ; instead we have nothing but firmly 
established habits of thought and principles 
of action. 

"The Pupil and the Teacher," by Professor 
Luther Weigle, develops the same incomplete 
ideas. The goal of religious training is sta- 
ted on page 195 as to "accept the love of God 
as revealed in Jesus, and to live as God's 
child." Before this decision the work of the 
teacher is to prepare the child to make it, 
and afterward to help him to carry it out. 
But in Christian consciousness the love of 
God achieved forgiveness through the re- 
deeming sacrifice of Jesus, and the initiatory 
Christian act is one of self -abandoning faith 
in this justifying and regenerating sufficien- 
cy. The two ideas are not equivalents. The 
one is self-poised, the other is self-abandon- 
ing; the one is ethically self-complacent; it 
accepts love and tries to do its best for love ; 
the other is ethically tremendous; it moves 
through self-guilt, self-humiliation, self- 
abandonment out into Christ's allness. There 
is no need of further quotations ; this is the 
defect of the book. All that it says and 
teaches truly and well falls short because the 
author does not aim at the fully Christian 
goal. We want a little later to speak more 
definitely a word of appreciation of much 
that is splendid; in these books, but before 
doing this we pass on to the same defect al- 
ready analyzed in Dr. Bett's book, "How to 
Teach Religion." 

Professor Betts describes the movement 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 81 



and goal of religious training as he under- 
stands it in several places in his volume, but 
it is very clearly put on pages 84 and 85. We 
will quote rather extensively to get the whole 
spirit and movement of his thought. The 
caption of the paragraph is, "The Evolution 
of Spiritual Responsiveness." The para- 
graph is as follows : "The realization of this 
new spiritual consciousness in the child's life 
may not involve any special nor abrupt up- 
heaval. If the child is wisely led, and if he 
develops normally in his religion, it almost 
certainly will not. Countless thousands of 
those who are living lives very full of spirit- 
ual values have come into the rich conscious- 
ness of divine relationship so gradually that 
the separate steps cannot be distinguished. 
'First the blade, then the ear, then the full 
grain in the ear' is the natural law of spirit- 
ual growth." 

"The bearing of this truth upon our teach- 
ing is that we must seek for the unfolding of 
the child's spiritual nature and for the turn- 
ing of his thoughts and affections toward 
God from the first. We must not point to 
some distant day ahead when the child will 
'accept Jesus' or become 'a child of God.' We 
must ourselves think of the child, and lead 
the child to think of himself as a member of 
God's family." 

"This does not mean that the child as he 
grows from childhood into youth, and adult- 
hood, will not need to make a personal and 
definite decision to give God and the Christ 
first place in his life; he will need to do this 
not once but many times. It only means 



82 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



that from his earliest years the child is to 
be made to feel that he belongs to God, and 
should turn to him as Father and Friend. 
Day by day and week by week the child 
should be growing more vitally conscious of 
God's place in his life, and more responsive 
to this relationship. Only by this steady and 
continuous process of growth will the spirit- 
ual nature take on the depth and quality 
which the Christian ideal sets for its attain- 
ment." 

There are many things that we need to re- 
member in reading this. First, there is no 
conception of God here that is not just as 
complete in the twenty-third Psalm. The au- 
thor of that Psalm, centuries before Christ 
came, had just as much faith in God as his 
Father and Friend as is possible to express. 
If then the attiude described here as the goal 
of training is really complete, if it is the 
Christian goal, then the cross of Christ is a 
useless sacrifice. Second, no one who under- 
stands Historic Christianity ever described 
the initiatory act of Christian life as a de- 
cision to put God and the Christ first. There 
is no possibility of confusing this sentence 
with, justification by faith alone. Third, 
this position utterly fails to appreciate the 
deep spiritual nature of sin. It evidently as- 
sumes that sin is largely a matter of coarse 
habits. 

But again, that we are having Christianity 
reduced to mere ethical theism, in which 
Christ stands simply as the great teacher 
and exemplar, comes out even more definite- 
ly in the author's Ten Purpuses,-— one won- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



83 



ders if ten is reminiscent of God's Ten Com- 
mandments ? But here are the author's ten : 

I will respect and care for my body. 

I will keep good natured, cheerful and re- 
sponsive. 

I will take pride in work and thrift. 

I will be honest and speak the truth. 

I will be obedient to the rules of my home 
and school and to the laws of my country. 

I will be courteous and kind. 

I will show courage and self-control. 

I will be dependable and do my duty. 

I will love and enjoy nature. 

I will each day turn to my Heavenly Fath- 
er for help, strength and forgiveness. 

Two or three questions come to our mind. 
Paxil asks, "Where then is glorying? It is 
excluded. By what manner of law? of works? 
No, of faith but our author makes use of 
pride as a productive motive. How utterly 
impossible it would be to apply this motive 
in Jesus' life? Pride springs out of the de- 
sire for self -exaltation, for superiority. The 
author makes a child say : "If I can stand at 
the head of my class, I will, but only when 
I have earned the right by honest effort." 
Certainly the honest effort idea is fine, but it 
cannot blind the discerning ethical sense 
to the fact that the desire for superiority 
lies within it, and that this is the very in- 
ner principle of sin. St. Paul blushed to say 
that he had labored more than all the apos- 
tles because Christian experience meant to 
him a self lost to glory and exaltation. "God 
forbid that I should glory save in the cross 
of my Lord," was his life's one transfiguring 



84 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



joy. If it should be replied that rivalry is 
the spice of life we make no other objection 
than to say, certainly, but life is so deeply 
wrong that Jesus said men must be born 
again before they can so much as see the 
Kingdom of God. But this is certain that 
there will be no rivalry, no smallest desire 
for superiority in heaven, either honest or 
dishonest, The one motive of heaven, or the 
Kingdom, whether in this world or in the 
next is an all-filling sense of love and duty— 
the love of Christ constraineth me. But we 
do not want to stress this criticism of the 
author; it is simply a passing illustration of 
how the new educational goal comes short of 
the great Christian realities all along the 
line. 

Another question that comes to us is, does 
the author purposely substitute "I will," for 
'Thou shalt?" Is he timid of a divine au- 
thority? Jesus said his meat was to do the 
Father's will. True Christianity has no 
sensitiveness at this point. St. Paul called 
himself the slave of God and of Jesus. Of 
course there is something going around 
about our democratic times being resentful 
of the Absolute God; but then he is abso- 
lute just the same, and one of the secrets of 
salvation is that we come in regeneration to 
love this all-mastering will we once resented 
and hated. "I love to be controlled, " runs a 
line of one of our greatest hymns. Would it 
be unfair to say that this sensitiveness of 
the modern man to God's absolute authority 
manifests the very depravity he so stoutly 
denies ? 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 85 



Then in conclusion we want to notice the 
the omission of any relationship to Christ's 
redeeming work. Instead we turn to the 
Heavenly Father for forgiveness. Yes, and 
the Psalmist did this with full assurance be- 
fore Christ came. But the Christian Church 
has ever seen in this Old Testament confi- 
dence something partial, that looked forward 
to be completed in Christ. Paul says that all 
forgiveness before Christ's coming looked 
forward to his propitiatory work ; that God 
forgave then with a view to this later re- 
demption. And now shall we, who live in 
the dispensation of this mighty ethical ac- 
complishment return to the twilight of pro- 
phetic glimmering confidence? 

One final criticism of quite an incidental 
character. The author says on page 112, 
"The early Christians had, of course, only 
the scriptures of the Old Testament. It was 
nearly four hundred years after Christ had 
lived on earth before we had a list of the New 
Testament books such as our Bible now con- 
tains. In the middle of the second century 
only about half of the present New Testa 
ment was in use as a part of the Scriptures. " 
We simply express the judgment that the au- 
thor's statement is very misleading, and in 
part incorrect. 

And now we want to express again and 
more definitely the conviction that there is 
very much of abiding worth in these books. 
There is no doubt that education can do large 
things for the child. It is possible to keep 
the child free from coarse sins. It is possi- 
ble to protect him from the allurements of 



86 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



sin's gaudy show. It is possible to put into 
his life good and useful habits and to develop 
his moral and natural powers, just as our 
authors teach. But all of this is below the 
level of a real Christian goal. And the Chris- 
tian Church is waiting for that master of 
the scientific facts of modern psychology, 
who, steadily holding to the Christian truths 
of the fall, depravity and redemption, will 
relate the modern scientific advance to abid- 
ing Christian truth. Most of the books in 
this field that we have seen are corrupted 
with the present-day naturalistic and Dar- 
winian bias. Instead of holding to the great 
Christian verities, and relating the experi- 
mental facts of science to them, Christian 
verities are surrendered in the name of un- 
proved, unprovable, and superficial theories. 
The ethical goals of modern psychologists 
are, as compared with Historic Christianity, 
sadly superficial. Jesus, St. Paul, and the 
great Christian theologians who have drunk 
at the fountain of New Testament truth 
move in thought altitudes that many of these 
modern writers have not even glimpsed from 
the distance. Their point of view is ethically 
superficial. Their goals are located in the 
Old Testament rather than in the New. They 
are offering to the Church mere ethical 
Theism in which Christ stands not as justi- 
fier and regenerator, but simply as the su- 
preme teacher and exemplar. It is one of 
the tragedies of our times that so many 
young lives are being deceived by this inade- 
quate program. As a working pastor I often 
hear this testimony: "I never was convert- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 87 



ed; I have always been a Christian." and 
then later after he has been led into an ex- 
perience, this, "I never knew what it was to 
be a Christian until now." Would we there- 
fore assume that all who do not know when 
they were converted never have been? By 
no means. Not every one has analytical 
powers enough to analyze his own experi- 
ence. Not every temperament is self-intro- 
spective enough to observe his own experi- 
ence. We would conclude simply this; that 
it is time we stopped setting up human in- 
ductions as a basis for contradicting God's 
word. He said ye must be born again, and 
that that which is born of the flesh is only 
flesh. Doubtless experiences in Christ are 
as different as leaves on a maple tree, no two 
of which will be identical. And yet there 
will always be the great characteristics : the 
sense of sin and guilt leading us to a com- 
plete self-abandonment ; the act of justi- 
fying faith in which we swing all our confi- 
dence from self to Christ; the incoming of 
his Spirit giving to us the inner assurance 
that we are accepted in the Beloved. 

As we said long ago, to every measure and 
quality of faith Christ makes some response, 
but he can only do his full justifying, re- 
generating, and sanctifying work in relation 
to fully Christian faith. If a person's faith 
Christward is a gradually enlarging and 
deepening thing his experience will natur- 
ally be likewise gradually enlarging. But 
if he is ever to come to rich, abounding, 
supernatural, confident sonship in Christ 
he must come swiftly or gradually to such 



88 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



a deep recognition of his own sin, guilt and 
ruin as will cry out, 

'"Just as I am, without one plea, 
But that thy blood was shed for me, 
And that thou bidd'st me come to thee, 
0 Lamb of God, I come!" 



CHAPTER IX. 



MODERN PRE- MILLEN NI ALIS M AND THE 
CHRISTIAN HOPE 

By Prof. Harris Franklin Rail, of Garrett 
Biblical Institute. 

ROFESSOR R ALL has two books 
in the present Course of Study, 
this one and his New Testament 
History. Both volumes repre- 
sent in greater or less degree 
the current destructive attitude 
toward New Testament facts. In his ear- 
lier volume, the history, there is much of 
real beauty and worth, but there is also a 
good bit that is halting or even destructive. 
We will come to this later, our present inter- 
est is in his more recent volume. 

In the introduction to this book Professor 
Rail offers some initiatory explanations of 
his own position, as one engaging in theo- 
logical controversy. We call attention to it, 
because it ought to enable him perfectly to 
understand why we feel called upon to point 
out the revolutionary significance of his own 
volumes. Thus he says that the Church has 
been preoccupied with practical concerns, 
and warns us that our supreme vocation is 
the truth, and that the truths we hold will in 
the long run shape our practical ideals. He 
tells us also that single doctrines may deter- 
mine a thinker's whole theological position, 
89 




90 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



and that therefore a doctrine must be con- 
sidered not only in itself but in relation to 
the whole system of thought that it fits into. 
Both of these statements are true, and they 
are both far more significant as applied to 
his own divergences than in the relation in 
which he is using them. But the closing par- 
agraph of his introduction is so expressive 
of our own attitude toward him and others 
who share his rationalistic point of view 
that we want to quote from it somewhat at 
length. 

In this paragraph he speaks with fine 
Christian charity about differences of opin- 
ion and then continues: "But all this does 
not relieve us of the responsibility of inquir- 
ing whether we have here a true interpreta- 
tion of Christianity, and what its signifi- 
cance would be for the Christian church. 
One does not need to be either a dogmatist 
or a heresy-hunter to realize how profound- 
ly the life of man is determined by the truths 
which he holds. If this teaching of modern 
chiliasm be true, then a revolution is in or- 
der in the aims and plans to which our 
churches are committed, and which we are 
using as the rallying call for a new crusade. 
If it is not true, then it is of the greatest im- 
portance that the character and consequence 
of this doctrine be pointed out. That is 
what is here undertaken.'* 

If the reader will replace the Professor's 
word, chiliasm, with the words, radical the- 
ology, this apology of the author for his con- 
troversial book will almost perfectly express 
the motive of our own writing. Is Christ er- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 91 



rant or in-errant? Is man lost and needing 
redemption or only undeveloped and in need 
of leadership? Is the Bible the only and 
sufficient rule of faith and practice or only a 
fallible, though spiritually extraordinary 
book? The Church has come to an epochal 
point in history, shall it continue in the faith 
of the past twenty centuries, or shall it aban- 
don it? From now on shall we preach the 
Cross as the power of God to our salvation, 
or simply as the beautiful symbol of all self- 
sacrifice in which Jesus stands only as the 
first among equate? The issues involved in 
the pre-millennial controversy pale into in- 
significance when compared with these. Cer- 
tainly a man does not need to be "a heresy- 
hunter" to realize how profoundly different 
- the life of the Church will be if it departs 
from its historic positions and adopts these 
new views. It is because we see this situa- 
tion that we are undertaking to point out the 
danger. 

In turning to the author's volume we will 
pass by altogether the pre-millennial ques- 
tion. It is not, and there does not seem to be 
any need for its being defined in our Church 
standards. In Eschatology there has always 
been large room for personal opinion. But 
Professor Rail rejects much more than the 
pre-millennial theory of the Savior's return, 
he rejects the return itself, and makes Jesus 
as well as his disciples mistaken in respect 
to this major item of his teaching, and their 
belief. 

To be sure he tries to show that this is 
quite a reasonable situation, that Jesus was 



92 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



in this respect simply a child of his age, 
knowing neither more nor less of history or 
of science than was known by men about 
him. But Jesus' gospel, we point out, was 
not a matter either of history or of science, 
it was a matter of his own inner spiritual 
certainty, and in his thought his return was 
a part of that gospel. If he was mistaken in 
this matter his infallibility is gone, and it is 
gone not in respect of science, but of relig- 
ion. 

If Jesus did not know whether it was God's 
purpose for him to return at the end of the 
present dispensation to raise the dead and 
complete judgment, then he did not know 
God's will with respect to redemption, and 
we have no certainty that he knew God's will 
infallibly in any respect. If we can differ 
with the Savior as to his return, then we are 
at the end of all authority, Christ ceases to 
be God Incarnate, and Christianity becomes 
simply a system of ethical monotheism in 
which Jesus is only the supreme teacher and 
great example. If pre-millennialism has far- 
reaching theological consequences so has an 
errant Christ. Unitarianism is the inevita- 
ble destination of the mind that starts down 
this road. 

Here, stated briefly, are the author's posi- 
tions at this point: Jesus' long discourse 
concerning his return and the end of the 
world, as reported in all of the Synoptic Gos- 
pels, is not an accurate presentation of his 
ideas. The core of the ideas found there is 
from Jesus, but the evangelists have ampli- 
fied and modified it. The current Jewish 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 93 



apocalyptic literature and thought consider- 
ably affected these discourses. 

Jesus' own thought is very much less in- 
fluenced by this apocalyptic material than 
that of the apostles, yet he too apparently 
expected that he would return, and that 
speedily, indeed, during the life-time of the 
men who had rejected him. In this expecta- 
tion (the author concludes that he seems to 
have been in error, his error being due to the 
influence of Jewish expectation upon his 
thought. 

The author completes this chapter on, 
"The Kingdom Hope with Jesus," with a 
statement of what that hope is as he has cor- 
rected it by omitting the second coming. 
There is something peculiarly shocking 
about such a reconstruction of Jesus' thought 
for the purpose of eliminating his errors. 

And now for a few citations that might be 
multiplied in which the author's position as 
set forth above is expressed by himself. 

He is referring in one paragraph to the 
Synoptic accounts of the discourse of Jesus 
with his disciples concerning the end of the 
world and his return. He says : "The writer 
holds with those who believe that we have 
here a later composition embodying sayings 
of Jesus, perhaps uttered at different times 
even, but amplified and modified." 58p. 

With respect to the Savior's expectation 
of his own return, he writes: "Apparently, 
Jesus expected in the near future some great 
manifestation of the power of God which 
would bring in the kingdom. Connected 1 with 
this was his expectation that he himself 



94 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



would return to consummate his work and 
that this return would evidence his Messiah- 
ship to the men who had rejected him." 69p. 

That Jesus was mistaken in this expecta- 
tion the author states on the next page, thus : 
"First of all we consider the fact that Jesus' 
expectation was not fulfilled in the form in 
which he held it." 70p. 

Turning from Jesus to the primitive 
Church, the author admits that they all fol- 
lowed the Master in his mistaken expecta- 
tion. He says: "Paul held the general 
apocalyptic framework, a common Jewish 
and early Christian possession. For him, as 
for the early Christians all, Christ and his 
return was the heart of the apocalyptic 
hope." 8Bp. 

We would call attention to the fact that 
for Methodism the Bible is the only and suffi- 
cient rule of faith and practice, and that this 
is defined both in the Articles of Religion 
and the General Rules; and that in addition 
the return of Jesus at the end of the world 
to be our judge is established in the third of 
our Articles ; so that the professor's position 
here is clearly out of harmony with the es- 
tablished beliefs of his Church. 

But not only does Dr. Rail thus directly 
repudiate one established item of faith, and 
by implication several others, but in some of 
the later chapters of his book he goes on to 
make explicit his rejection of the authority 
of the Bible which is, by implication, sur- 
rendered from the beginning. 

The conception that comes to our mind in 
reading his paragraphs is that he looks upon 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 95 



the Bible as a product of men of great spirit- 
ual genius, who appeared in history at just 
the providential times to accomplish the un- 
folding of Israel's vocation. They were not 
prophets, supernaturally endued, who spoke 
for God, and to whom he revealed his will 
for the future as well as for the present. Dr. 
Rail specifically rejects the idea that the 
prophets had supernatural pre-vision. They 
were men who knew the world movements of 
their day, and they fore-saw the future by 
the simple application of general moral prin- 
ciples. Thus, Isaiah wants to say, that the 
wages of sin is death, but instead of saying 
it thus he writes, Ho Assyria the rod of mine 
anger, the staff in whose hand is mine indig- 
nation. (Isaiah 10:5) 192p. It is interest- 
ing to notice in this same connection that the 
author asserts that there is no reference to a 
suffering Messiah in the Old Testament. 
(New Testament History 113p.) 

Perhaps the clearest expression of his at- 
titude toward Scripture comes out on pages 
228-229. He says : "The absolutistic concep- 
tion of God leads inevitably to the institu- 
tional conception of religion. Religion too, 
must be something definite and fixed and 
perfect or it could not have come from 
God Now, religion as a life and an ex- 
perience is always something growing, and 
therefore imperfect. Hence the real essence 
of this religion (the absolutist) must be 
sought elsewhere and in something that is 
fixed and complete. Sometimes that is found 
in the creeds or in some system of doc- 
trine, sometimes in the Bible conceived as 



96 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



verbally inspired and infallible 

But whichever it is, doctrine or letter of 
Scripture, or church, it appears as a final and 
absolute authority to which man has merely 
to bow in submission." Having stated this 
view the author goes on to point out that it 
makes of God a despot, and that it is not ac- 
ceptable. 

In this paragraph we have a definite re- 
jection of the infallibility of the Bible. The 
author does not simply reject the verbal in- 
spiration theory, but infallibility itself. The 
Bible is errant, and even Christ who stands 
at the end of the revelational movement is 
errant. The author is clearly forcing us to a 
choice between Historic Christianity, on the 
one hand, and a fluent imperfect, evolving 
faith on the other. Historic Christianity 
itself is a movement, but it is a great super- 
natural movement true at every stage of its 
unfolding, and finally brought to its sub- 
blime climax in the Incarnation. Of this 
movement and climax the Bible is the per- 
fect and sufficient record and interpretation. 

When the Church is asked to surrender 
this great faith for a sort of comedy, or 
tragedy of errors it is being summoned to no 
small sacrifice. Let us consider one or two 
illustrations of what the author means when 
he speaks of religion as something growing 
and imperfect. 

There is first of all the matter of our 
Lord's expectation that he would return at 
the end of the world. For twenty centuries 
the Church has confessed its faith in this as 
very truth. Now we are told that the belief 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 97 



is mistaken. The probable residuum of 
truth in this expectation would doubtless be, 
according to the author, that the rule of God 
is coming. Here we can see the gradually 
clearing truth and the element of error in the 
process. Similarly for twenty centuries the 
Church has believed that Jesus went to Jeru- 
salem with the definite purpose of giving his 
life there as a propitiation for sin. But our 
professor admits nothing of the kind. He 
never presents Jesus as looking upon his 
death as a purpose. Doubtless this propitia- 
tory conception must be looked upon again 
as the element of error, the truth being that 
divine love will not shrink from any inci- 
dental sacrifice that may be involved in his 
effort to help men. 

It requires no great insight to realize that 
such opinions must inevitably make of 
Christianity a little naturalistic system in 
which the Incarnation becomes incongruous 
and impossible. The Bible is not God's su- 
pernatural revelation, the prophets did not 
have a supernatural prevision, there is no 
suffering Messiah in the Old Testament, 
Jesus himself is errant, his death was not a 
redeeming sacrifice but simply an incidental 
expression of his love and loyalty, and the 
Gospel that has been preached in his name is 
not the truth but an imperfect conception 
containing elements of error, — it is easy to 
see that the Incarnation is as incongruous in 
the center of such a movement as a nursery 
would be in the center of a battle front. 
Professor Rail does indeed hold to the Incar- 
nation and the healing ministries of Jesus, 



98 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



but these ideas have no fitness to his system, 
and his students wall inevitably do one of 
two things, they will either move on to a 
completer rationalism, or else react toward 
Historic Christianity with its supernatural 
Bible, its prophetic pre-vision, its inerrant 
Christ, and its sublime atoning cross. 

A closing word. Professor Rail makes 
large claims with respect to the scholarly 
consensus at one point in his book; but it 
ought to be pointed out that it is not his 
scholarship, but simply his personal bias 
that determines his beliefs. What single 
scientific fact can he allege to prove that Je- 
sus will not return just exactly as he expect- 
ed? Science knows absolutely nothing about 
God's final purposes, and clear headed 
science never enters such a field. If we are 
to have any knowledge of God's great con- 
summations we must have it by supernatu- 
ral revelation, and in this field, who better 
than Jesus can speak the final purposes of 
the Father ? 



CHAPTER X. 



New Testament History, 

By Professor Harris Franklin Rail. 

HIS earlier volume by Professor 
Rail is the better, that . is, it is 
the less boldly divergent of his 
two in the Course of Study. The 
author has expressed in it his 
heart's own wonder before the 
personality of Jesus, the Incarnate Son of 
God, and the reader will not miss this fine 
reverence. Yet the book has much in it that 
is hesitating and even divergent from the 
point of view of Historic Christianity. We 
will begin by summarizing our criticisms, 
and then treat them in detail with citations. 

Dr. Rail is hesitating as to the Virgin 
birth and mistaken in his statement of its 
New Testament evidences. (Pages 34 and 
35). 

He tones down Jesus' teaching concerning 
bis death to make it fit his own divergent 
views on this subject. Professor Rail does 
not accept the redemptive and propitiatory 
conception of the cross as defined in the 
twentieth of our Articles of Religion. The 
cross is not to him a great redeeming work, 
an achievement, and so he modifies the Sa- 
viour's teaching upon this subject from the 
New Testament's powerful, it is necessary, 
it is fated, it is ordained that the Messiah 
99 




100 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



must suffer and die, to his own weaker con- 
ception that such a death was very probable, 
"death might come." 

The author makes this conception only a 
late idea in Jesus' mind, and never to the 
last is it understood as a great redeeming 
purpose, but only as something incidental in 
connection with his teaching ministry at Je- 
rusalem (Pages 42, 112, 113, 136, 305). 

He rejects the apostolic authorship of the 
Fourth Gospel thus depriving the Church of 
those sublime discourses of Jesus, which are 
incomparable in literature. (Pages 105, 
287-290). 

The idea of demoniacal possession is made 
one that came from Persia in the sec- 
ond century B. C, and Jesus' own re- 
lation to this mistaken notion is left unex- 
plained. The author admits that Jesus com- 
manded demons out of men, but whether in 
doing this he shared the superstition of the 
people or accommodated himself to it he does 
not say. It is a striking fact that modern 
science is reacting toward the New Testa- 
ment view of this matter, and that in some 
of the mission fields the phenomenon can be 
seen as in Jesus' day. (Page 54-55). 

For him the New Testament is not only 
not verbally inspired (a view that was never 
defined in Methodism, since our doctrinal 
positions are practical and vital rather than 
theoretical) but it is errant. The author 
broadly suggests that the apostles may have 
unconsciously altered the teaching of Jesus, 
having written into it ideas of their own that 
he did not share. This position he takes deft- 



HISTORIC CHIRSTIANITY 101 



nitely in his later volume which we have al- 
ready examined. (Pages 124, 125). 

He regards the accounts of the resurrec- 
tion as so dissimilar as to be irreconcilable, 
and raises a question as to the possibility of 
harmonizing the accounts of the nativity. 
(Pages 140, 141, 34). 

He defines the meaning of Christ's Cross 
in terms of the Moral Influence theory, 
which as a secondary value is profoundly 
true, but which as the whole meaning of 
Christ's redeeming death, loses it altogether. 
If Christ did not die a propitiation for sin, 
there can be no such thing as justification by 
faith, and the Bible is errant even in a major 
teaching, and Christianity has been wrong 
from the beginning. (Page 136). But let 
us turn to some of these items and consider 
them more in detail. 

The author's position on the Virgin Birth 
is stated on pages 34 and 35. He says : 

"As to the story of the virgin birth, it has 
been pointed out that the rest of the New 
Testament is silent upon this, and that in 
Luke there is but a single clause that refers 
to it. Two points should be made clear here. 
One is that the virgin birth was evidently 
not essential for the faith of the early 
Church. Paul and John, who say nothing 
concerning it, are the two writers who give 
us the highest conception of the divinity of 
Jesus. The other is, that to the Church it 
has always seemed the fitting conception of 
the mode of the coming of the Messiah. It is 
always to be remembered, however, that it 
is the character and life of Jesus which lead 



102 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



us to believe in the virgin birth, and not the 
virgin birth which leads us to believe in Je- 
sus." 

Now notice that the author seems plainly 
to deny that there is any reference to the vir- 
gin birth in Paul or John or Matthew. Yet 
Matthew says definitely that Joseph was not 
the father of Jesus, that he was a child of the 
Holy Ghost, and quotes an Old Testament 
prophecy concerning the virginity of his 
mother. And other scholars do find probable 
references to this wonderful circumstance of 
Jesus' birth in both John and Paul. 

Notice, second, that the author says that 
Luke's reference is confined to "a single 
clause," and yet the fact is that five verses 
from the 34th-38th inclusive of Luke first 
chapter deal exclusively with this one idea, 
and that there are many other verses in 
which this idea is implicit. Certainly Pro- 
fessor Rail does say that the Church has al- 
ways seen the fitness of this idea ; but to ad- 
mit that, as an idea, it has value, is but poor 
compensation after he has sought to belittle 
the evidences of it as a fact. 

The Methodist Church confesses the vir- 
gin birth of Jesus, and such a miracle is a 
mere trifle compared with the whole tower- 
ing fact of God Incarnate. What use then 
of straining at the gnat and swallowing the 
camel? But,, again, Methodism confesses the 
virgin birth, it is a part of Historic Chris- 
tianity. Our courses of study are not pro- 
vided to raise up a body of weak, mediating 
preachers whose own faith is whittled down, 
and who can therefore mediate between His- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 103 



toric Christianity and the modern anti-su- 
pernaturalism. Historic Christianity is su- 
pernatural from end to end, and the mediat- 
ing view is as fatal to it as complete nega- 
tions. Methodism as a part of Historic 
Christianity, seeks through its courses of 
study to produce men of robust faith: there- 
fore such a hesitating attitude toward the 
virgin birth of Jesus as the author express- 
es here is not admissible. But vastly more 
important is the author's attitude toward 
Christ's death. 

He defines the meaning of the cross on 
page 136 : 

"It wrought the sense of sin and the feel- 
ing of penitence Which he had wished to call 
forth. It stood forth as the crowning deed 
of his love in which they saw the love and 
mercy of God. It fixed forever the ideal of 
his life as that of love and service, and the 
ideal of the Christian life for those who were 
to follow him." 

Notice there is no suggestion here that 
the cross made it possible for the Fath- 
er to forgive the guilt of sin without 
violating his holiness. The cross is pre- 
sented as moving men, as expressing 
God's love, as fixing for all future cen- 
turies the love ideal of Christ's life, but 
nothing more. But the second of our Articles 
of Religion affirms that Christ died to "rec- 
oncile his Father to us," that is, that by his 
sacrifice he made it possible for God's love to 
forgive us without doing violence to his ho- 
liness. And this idea has been from the be- 
ginning the vital centre of the Christian re- 



104 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



iigion. Jesus taught it repeatedly, he gave it 
symbolic expression in the sacramental meal, 
Peter preached it in the first Christian ser- 
mon on the day of Pentecost. It is the su- 
preme truth of Paul. Luther started a great 
revival of religion by sweeping away from 
this truth the dust of good works and super- 
stitious penances that had hidden it from the 
hearts of men. 

Justification by faith in this finished work 
of Christ is the truth that came to supreme 
emphasis in John Wesley's life through his 
years of religious struggle, and he greatly 
stressed it in his preaching. 

But Professor Rail sacrifices this whole 
truth. He omits it in his interpretation of 
the cross, above; and in his account of the 
events that lead up to the cross, he tones 
down the Savior's redemptive purpose to a 
sort of human insight that death awaited 
him if he went up to Jerusalem, combined 
with other human factors. Jesus did not 
go to Jerusalem because he comprehend- 
ed and shared the redemptive purpose of God 
in his cross. He went because other doors 
were closed and he argued that God must, 
then, be calling him to Jerusalem and to 
death. How diminutive this is compared to 
the portrait the gospels present of him and 
the faith that the Christian centuries have 
held of him. 

We will take time to quote one rather ex- 
tended passage in which the author express- 
es just these views. It is from pages 112-113. 

"We do not know when Jesus formed this 
resolution to go to Jerusalem. He saw it ap- 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 105 



parently as the will of his Father, which he 
read in the course that his life had taken. 
Other doors were closed to him. In Galilee, 
where his work had begun with such promise, 
there were now the conspiring Pharisees 
and Herodians, and a people that had turned 
from him. To go to Gentile lands was to 
give up his mission. Only the way to Jeru- 
salem was open. There he would make the 
last appeal to his people. The issue of that 
appeal, however, he clearly foresaw, and for 

that he had to prepare his disciples The 

finger of God pointed to Jerusalem, it was 
his to go. His duty was not to save himself, 
but to trust God ; not to find his own way, 
but to obey. If God's way led to Jerusalem 
and death, then suffering and death were a 
part of God's plan and of his work. His 
death, then, was to accomplish what his life 
had failed to do." 

The author makes this an original idea 
with Jesus, asserting that "Neither the Old 
Testament nor the teachers of his day knew 
anything of a suffering Messiah." He then 
continues, suggesting that Jesus found help 
in working out his conclusion from what he 
knew to have been the fate of so many pro- 
phets before him. "He had seen what had 
happened to John, and read in it his own 
end. That had been the fate of faithful 
messengers in the past, as he told them later 
at Jerusalem. He was not to escape it." 

Half a dozen ideas are implicit here that 
are a serious departure from Christian faith 
concerning Jesus. First, it assumes that at 
the beginning Jesus had expected his preach- 



106 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



ing ministry to succeed, and that his rejec- 
tion involved a change of plan. Second, it 
assumes that Jesus' going up to Jerusalem 
was a sort of last forlorn hope, he still 
wished simply to win the people to his ethi- 
cal program. Third, it contradicts St. 
John's clear statement that Jesus foresaw 
the cross from the very beginning of his 
ministry in Judea. Fourth, it contradicts 
the equally clear statement of the Synoptic 
Gospels that long before his going up to Je- 
rusalem Jesus clearly taught his disciples 
that the cross was God's purpose for him 
there. Fifth, it contradicts the statement 
both of John and of the Synoptists that Jesus 
understood his cross as the great supreme 
redemptive achievement of his whole life. 
Does not Luke make Moses and Elias con- 
verse with him on the mount of transfigura- 
tion concerning his death which he is to ac- 
complish at Jerusalem? Does not John the 
Baptist introduce him as the Lamb of God 
that taketh away the sins of the world? And 
does not he himself repeatedly speak of his 
redemptive ministry in those first sermons 
and conversations at Jerusalem? Sixth, it 
involves, not the inspiration only, but the 
very reliability of all the Gospel records. 
And, seventh, it introduces an element of un- 
certainty into the religious thought of Jesus 
that is inconsistent with his character as 
God incarnate, and even with his authority 
as a teacher. 

If Jesus did not know God's purpose for 
him in the cross, if he only inferred it, if this 
inference was a late development and even 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



107 



then not clearly understood, if it was an idea 
that came to him as a result partly of the 
fate of John the Baptist and of other pro- 
phets before him, — if, we say, his idea of the 
cross came to him from such sources what 
certainty have we that it might not have 
been mistaken? Might it not have been a 
pessimistic conclusion from the depressing 
experiences he had passed through? What 
certainty can Professor Rail give us that Je- 
sus was right in this inference when he tells 
us that he was wrong in respect of another 
idea he announced much just at this same 
time, that, namely, of his Second Coming? 
The conclusion is inevitable, our author's 
teaching here tends to whittle down the fig- 
ure of Christ from those sublime proportions 
in which the New Testament gives him to 
us. The author's position is mediating and 
impossible. His Christ is too small a figure 
to be the Son of God incarnate. Doulbtless 
he would repudiate this opinion, for he holds 
firmly to the Deity of Christ ; but the conclu- 
sion is nevertheless inevitable. An errant 
Christ cannot enduringly be looked upon as 
God. If Jesus was the son of Joseph, if he 
made mistakes, if the accounts of the resur- 
rection are inaccurate, and Luke and Paul 
differ as to it, — if these ideas are accepted, 
it is not a great step to the denial of the su- 
pernatural altogether, and the transforming 
of Christ into a simple human genius. And 
why not? A human teacher is just as good 
as an errant divine one, and a human exam- 
ple is better. The denial of the Atonement 
makes unnecessary the Incarnation. 



108 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Similarly upon the matter of the au- 
thorship of the Fourth Gospel Dr. Rail 
weakens the historic view. It is not 
for him an apostolic writing. It is a 
late production bearing traces of the 
influence of St. Paul's teaching and in- 
corporating "a tradition" concerning an 
outstanding event in the life of Jesus with 
the twelve. (See pages 105 and 287-290). 
The reader of these paragraphs by the au- 
thor, if he is familiar with the rationalistic 
theory, that primitive Christianity was a 
simple system of ethical theism, and that 
Paul greatly modified it, will doubtless find 
in them reminders of this view. Half a doz- 
en times in as many paragraphs the Fourth 
Gospel is related to Paul's thought. Its pro- 
duction witnesses the abiding influence of 
Paul's teaching. It is said to agree with 
Paul's positions. But why Paul? Why not 
common Christian belief, unless the author 
means to distinguish between them? Did 
Matthew, Mark and Luke hold different ideas 
of Christ and salvation from those held by 
John and Paul? The author does not, we 
think, come to any such conclusion; but is 
not this conclusion a necessary consequence 
of his statement that the influence of Paul's 
theology is apparent in John ? Certainly the 
inferential basis is stronger here, to say the 
least, than that on which many a higher 
critical theory has been founded, and the 
author helps it by developing a difference be- 
tween Paul and Luke on the matters of the 
resurrection of Jesus, his ascension, and of 
the gift of tongues. (See pages 141, 143, 
144). 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 109 



But this is the only point we care to insist 
upon here: that a book which makes the 
teaching of Paul to any extent the explana- 
tion of the theology of the discourses of the 
Fourth Gospel must deny the apostolic au- 
thorship of that Gospel. John who sat at the 
feet of Jesus, and received his theology from 
him direct could not have been guided by any 
lesser influence. If John heard Jesus say 'In 
my father's house are many mansions" he 
wrote it because he heard Jesus say it and 
not because of any Pauline influence. Simi- 
larly if John wrote the Gospel he told that 
incident of the crisis at Capernaum when the 
people went away, because he was there and 
remembered it and remembered how Peter 
had said, "Lord to whom shall we go, thou 
hast the words of eternal life." If this nar- 
rative in John six is grounded in "a tradi- 
tion" John did not write it. Eye witnesses 
do not relate traditions about themselves and 
men who relate traditions are not eye wit- 
nesses. 

Professor Rail says it is not important 
whether in these sublime discourses we have 
the literal speech of Jesus. But we cannot 
agree with him. It does make a great deal of 
difference. It makes a world of difference 
whether Jesus really said "Ye must be born 
again" or whether someone else who thought 
he had caught the point of view of Jesus 
wrote these words and put them into Jesus' 
mouth. Of course we can see how for Pro- 
fessor Rail it would make less difference 
than for the rest of us, for his Christ not 
only could, but did make mistakes. He made 



110 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



a mistake as to his second coming, and Pro- 
fessor Rail suggests some other lines of pos- 
sible error, as well as that he got his doctrine 
of the cross slowly by uncertain inference. 
We say, we can appreciate how for him, 
when he has already surrendered the au- 
thoritative Christ of the New Testament, 
it would not be so serious to lose his words. 
But for the rest of us to whom he is still 
one who speaks out of deep intuitions that 
are as certain as the mind of God this mat- 
ter is one of great seriousness. 

But why must we sacrifice all these things. 
Is there any scholarly reason against the 
Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel? 
The principal one has been the difference of 
style between the Gospel and the Apocalypse. 
But the Professor does not assign the 
Apocalypse of St. John. What then? It 
may certainly be said that the story of 
Christ is more deeply told in John than in 
the Synoptics, but it cannot be shown that 
the figure of Christ is any more sublime in 
one than in the other. The cross of Christ is 
just as clear and just as redemptive in Mat- 
thew as in John, and the Deity of Christ just 
as unmistakable in Luke as in John or in 
Paul. And beside if we admit the need of 
time for development so as to get an argu- 
ment against the apostolic authorship of the 
Fourth Gospel, then, of necessity, we make 
Paul or some one else beside Jesus the author 
of Christianity. The denial of the Johannine 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel is a part of 
the rationalistic destructive criticism, and 
unless the Revelation is assigned to John and 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 111 



the problem of style raised, it has no respec- 
table foundation either internal or external. 
Those who sacrifice the apostolic authorship 
of John's Gospel do it generally to enable 
them to work out an evolution of Christian 
doctrine. 

But let us pause for a moment to take one 
glance at some of the superficial subjectivi- 
ties of this modern New Testament criti- 
cism, in the name of which we are called up- 
on to surrender some of the most precious 
things of faith. Professor Rail does not give 
any of this detail in his book, he simply tells 
us in the introduction that he makes use of 
its * 'assured results." 

Last summer an outstanding professor of 
one of our best known American Methodist 
universities was traveling with some fellow 
Methodists. He gave to them the following 
argument against the reliability of Mat- 
thew's Gospel. He said that in Mark's ac- 
count of the healings that closed that great 
Sabbath day in Capernaum the record is, 
that they brought all of the sick of the city to 
Jesus, and he healed many of them ; and that 
in Matthew's account it says, they brought 
many of the sick of the city to Jesus, and he 
healed all of them. Having pointed out this 
difference the professor asserted that it was 
a concrete instance of inaccuracy and exag- 
geration on the part of Matthew. He made 
much of his point, and, when some objection 
was made to the worth of the item, he re- 
plied : It is distinctions like that out of which 
criticism builds its arguments, and not to ap- 
preciate it is simply to manifest intellectual 
incapacity for the critical task. 



112 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



No reply to such objections to the reliabil- 
ity and accuracy of the Biblical records is 
necessary for the practical mind that lives 
day by day in contact with reality. Such 
criticisms answer themselves. But consider, 
the professor said that this distinction was 
typical, and anyone who has read at all 
closely in this field knows that it is. There 
are distinctions made by some of the great- 
est names in Europe that have no more point 
to them than this one has. Certainly the lay 
mind cannot afford to take such critical ar- 
guments and conclusions by faith, and sur- 
render for the sake of them the reliability of 
its New Testament records. 

And consider, again, what must be the ef- 
fect upon men's minds of constant reading in 
such a 'field, and constant looking for such 
divergences? One is reminded of how the 
Jewish rabbis used to pride themselves on 
their ability to hang tons of conclusion from 
a single hair of evidence. We laugh at them 
and boast our modern superiority. But to 
say no more, classifying such bald subjectiv- 
ities, as we have been speaking of, as science 
is certainly caricaturing science. 

But, in conclusion, Professor Rail's New 
Testament History is in many respects a 
strong volume, it is reverent, it is spiritual, 
it fully recognizes the essential deity of 
Christ. But it tones down Christian facts. 
It hesitates upon the virgin birth, its Christ 
made mistakes, its New Testament contains 
matters put ino the mouth of Jesus by oth- 
ers, and which may, perhaps, misrepresent 
him. Its Christ did not definitely purpose to 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 113 



give his life a propitiation for sin, indeed, he 
did not purpose his death at all, and the doc- 
trine of Justification is lost for lack of a 
foundation to stand it on. It sets forth that 
Luke and Paul held a different idea of 
Christ's resurrection, that John's Gospel is 
not apostolic in origin, — in a word the vol- 
ume is hesitating and mediating. It seeks to 
mediate between the robust supernatural! sm 
of historic Christianity and the modern anti- 
supernaturalism. It might be helpful to 
shattered faith, but it will not tend to 
strengthen strong conviction. It will not 
equip men to preach the truths of Historic 
Christianity, the truths established as un- 
changeable in the Methodist Church. When 
it is remembered that Walker's Church His- 
tory, the only other book in the course which 
covers this field of Christian beginnings, is 
very much more radical, and that ideas only 
vaguely suggested in Dr. Rail's work are 
strongly asserted there, the dangerous possi- 
bilities in the influence of the professor's 
halting and mediating opinions will be more 
fully appreciated. 



CHAPTER XI. 



A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Prof. Willi ston Walker, in Yale University. 

HE student of Professor Walk- 
er's book ought immediately to 
realize that the book is written 
from a chosen point of view. We 
make no criticism of this cir- 
cumstance. In any comprehen- 
sive treatment an author's point of view is 
generally more or less a chosen one. In our 
author's case his chosen point of view is al- 
lowed to dominate the whole situation, so 
much so that he even allows it to modify his 
historic facts, — that is he reshapes facts 
to make them fit his point of view. 

His point of view is that Historic Chris- 
tianity is a gradual development from a rath- 
er simple beginning, and that in the working 
out of this process many factors united. He- 
brew rabbinism, Greek philosophy, Roman 
politics are mentioned among them. 

And the items thus evolved are the very 
chief truths of our Faith, namely, the Incar- 
nation of the Eternal Son, his redemptive 
suffering, and justification by faith alone. 

That this view is hopelessly discordant 
both with the 'New Testament and with his- 
toric Christian beliefs needs hardly to be 
pointed out. The New Testament makes the 
Incarnation, Redemption and Justification 
114 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 115 



all a part of the most primitive belief and 
teaching. The God-hood of Jesus is revealed 
and recognized before the ascension, his re- 
demptive sacrifice is taught from the begin- 
ning, and is tremendously enforced toward 
the close. This is especially true of the per- 
iod between the resurrection and the ascen- 
sion. And Justification is from the very first 
the whole centre of the Gospel. Jesus gives 
to it abiding expression in the symbolic meal, 
the Last Supper. Peter preaches it in the 
first Christian sermon. And in the whole 
New Testament it is thus clear and emphatic. 

In order to get rid of this clear teaching 
and emphasis the author is under the neces- 
sity of reconstructing the whole New Testa- 
ment tradition. He must make some books 
late, use extensively the idea that the Gos- 
pels are corrupted by a reflection back into 
them of later beliefs, and surrender any 
worth while conception of Inspiration. 

But even more seriously, an Incarnation 
that Jesus did not definitely teach, that was 
not definitely and strongly held from the be- 
ginning, is impossible. If Jesus did not defi- 
nitely reveal his Godhood to his disciples, if 
this Godhood was not definitely recognized by 
them from the ascension forward, if, instead, 
this idea gradually grew, Paul being the first 
to recognize his pre-existence, and the au- 
thor of John the first to conceive of him as 
God made manifest in the flesh, — if there was 
this evolution of belief as to his Godhood, and 
a similar evolution of belief as to Redemption 
and Justification then all of these truths have 
become uncertain, and will become incredible. 



116 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Who could believe in anyhing so stupen- 
dous as God made manifest in the flesh and 
redeeming men by an act of supreme self-sac- 
rifice, and yet believe that he failed to make 
known either his person or his work to the 
men whom he commissioned as his apostles 
and missionaries? Such an Incarnation is 
too small to command the respect of robust 
intellects, even for a generation. A God who 
could thus bungle his redemptive program 
would deserve the pity rather than the wor- 
ship of men. 

But once again, the foundation for faith in 
the Incarnation is complex, but it is funda- 
mentally and supremely historical. We be- 
lieve in the Incarnation above everything else 
because we believe that we have in the New 
Testament an accurate record of its stupen- 
dous facts, its resurrection, its miracles, its 
virgin birth, its moral grandeurs, its redeem- 
ing sacrifice. Then we take these facts and 
measure them in our hearts and consciences 
and we say : "It is true, because, in my con- 
science, it ought to be true." "It is true be- 
cause my heart longs for it to be true." But 
this moral approval of our consciences, and 
this eagerness of our hearts toward the New 
Testament record is like a lever without a 
fulcrum if the reliability of the record is sur- 
rendered. An Incarnation of which we have 
not a reliable record, an Incarnation that was 
not recognized for two generations after it 
had occurred and passed off the stage of his- 
tory, such an Incarnation is utterly un- 
thinkable. 

The author's position is fatal to Historic 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 117 



Christianity, and the probability is that he 
fully recognizes this circumstance, for he 
definitely rejects the doctrine of justification 
by faith alone as the one and sufficient condi- 
tion of salvation. But his position becomes 
the more objectionable to Christian faith 
when it is realized that it is not a scientific 
conclusion but simply a reconstruction of 
New Testament history by the principles of 
Darwinism. To reshape traditions, and to 
elaborate a complex theory of New Testa- 
ment origins, in order that unacceptable 
items may be gotten rid of, and the whole 
brought into accord with one's own personal 
opinion as to how it should have occurred,-— 
to do this, is certainly legitimate intellectual 
exercise, but it cannot by any stretch of the 
imagination be classified as scientific. Mod- 
ern unbelief, indeed, wears scientific dress, 
but its body, its real self, is as subjective as 
unbelief ever was. 

Anyone reading this book will at once rec- 
ognize its evolutionary creed. But the au- 
thor formulates the position for us on page 
586 where he says, "The newer Biblical 
criticism, especially of Germany, and the 
evolutionary view of development, have 
found large acceptance in many of the most 
influential schools of ministerial training, 
and have wide following among the ministry, 
especially in the northern and eastern por- 
tions of the United States." Certainly the 
author does not say, here, that he shares this 
view, but he does not need to, for his book 
constantly enforces it. His point of view of 
history is steadily evolutionary and natural- 
istic. 



118 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Perhaps the baldest single statement in the 
book is that in which he rejects the Christian 
doctrine of salvation. He says, "The pro- 
fundity and nobility of Luther's experience 
cannot be doubted. Yet its applicability as a 
universal test may be questioned. To him 
faith was a vital transforming power, a new 
and vivifying personal relationship. Many 
men, however, while sincerely desirous of 
serving God and their generation, have no 
such sense of personal forgiveness, no such 
soul-stirring depth of feeling, no such child- 
like trust. They desire, with God's aid, to do 
the best they can. For them 'justification by 
faith alone* is either well nigh meaningless, 
or becomes an intellectual assent to religious 
truth. To enter into the experience of Luther 
or of Paul is by no means possible for all." 

The contrast is between the experience of 
justification on the one hand and the "desire, 
with God's aid, to do the best they can," on 
the other. If the desire, with God's aid, to 
do the best one can constitutes a man a 
Christian, then Paul was a Christian before 
his experience on the Damascus road, and 
Wesley before his in Aldersgate Street. In- 
deed, under such a definition Christianity be- 
comes a mere system of ethical monotheism, 
in which Christ stands simply as the greatest 
teacher and exemplar. Indeed this is just 
what the author himself tells us is the drift 
of modem theology. He makes this state- 
ment in connection with an appreciation of 
Erasmus. He says that this great scholar of 
the Reformation period held to "a universal 
ethical theism having its highest illustration 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 119 



in Christ." And then continues pointing out 
that "his way of thinking was to have little 
influence on the Reformation as a whole, 
though much on Socinianism, and is that rep- 
resented in a great deal of modern theology 
of which he was the spiritual ancestor." p 
330. 

Certainly Professor Walker is correct in 
this statement. A great deal of modern the- 
ology is Socinian in its trend, its interest is 
not in Redemption and Justification, but in "a 
universal ethical theism having its highest 
illustration in Christ." And among other 
moderns who must be so classified is Profes- 
sor Walker himself. His rejection of justi- 
fication by faith alone, entirely apart from 
anything else, forces him into this position. 
There are only two possible ethical concep- 
tions at the point of justification. One is jus- 
tification by faith in Christ's redemption, and 
the other is justification by character. Pro- 
fessor Walker definitely places himself in the 
latter category when he speaks of men who 
cannot understand the experience of Luther 
or Paul, but who are Christians by virtue of 
a desire, with God's help to do the best they 
can. 

And this tendency is constantly apparent 
in modern times. This is the position of 
Clarke, Brown, Bowne, and it is seriously 
confusing writers in the field of Psychology 
and Religious Pedagogy. The ritual of the 
Methodist Church was modified toward this 
position by the revision of 1916. We mention 
three items. The Revision Committee omit- 
ted the Apostles' Creed from the ritual of 



120 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



adult baptism, they struck out the strong 
statement of original sin from both the bap- 
tismal rituals, they struck out similarly that 
beautiful question, "Have you saving faith in 
the Lord Jesus Christ ?" from the ritual of 
reception into full membership. The Bishops 
later restored the Apostles' Creed, but the 
other omissions remain. 

In place of the beautifully Christian ques- 
tion in the ritual for full membership, al- 
ready quoted, the Revision Committee sub- 
stituted this : "Do you receive Jesus Christ as 
your Savior, and confess him as your Lord 
and Master ?" We will take time to point out 
four things. 

1. The old question was incapable of any 
other than the historic interpretation. It 
referred to justification by faith alone, and 
put the emphasis upon salvation through 
vital believing relation with the Redeemer. 

2. The new question, to say the best of it, 
weakens the expression of this redemptive 
truth. But the fact is that it does not nec- 
essarily express it at all. The Unitarian 
theologian does not object to calling Jesus, 
Savior. He is Savior as one who teaches us 
sublime, ethical and religious ideas. No re- 
demptive ref erence is necessary in the word. 

3. The old question is true to the New 
Testament, which makes the recognition of 
Jesus' lordship implicit in saving faith. Obe- 
dience and service is a fruit of faith and fol- 
lows after justification. Salvation is by faith 
alone. Faith brings about a vital relation- 
ship at once ethical and supernatural, and 
good works follow after this experience as 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 121 



inevitably as there is light when the sun is 
shining. 

4. The old question and the new are both 
expressive of the theological consciousness 
that produced them. The old question was 
adopted fifty years ago when Justification 
was still seen as the centre of Christian be- 
lief. "Have you saving faith in the Lord Je- 
sus Christ?" was a natural expression of 
theological consciousness at that time. But 
today Justification is being attacked, it is be- 
ing attacked or omitted from a number of 
books in the present Course of Study. It is 
rejected or ignored by some of the men who 
were most prominent in accomplishing the 
revision of the ritual. Tt is but natural under 
such circumstances that the new question 
should greatly tone down the redemptive em- 
phasis and stress not a justifying relation- 
ship, but a purpose of obedience. 

But returning to Professor Walker's 
work, its attitude toward the supernatural 
is constantly halting. His own position 
is quite accurately expressed on page 
491 where it is summed up about in- 
to this: "Since Hume's criticism, the 
question of miracles has been increasing- 
ly felt to be one of peculiar difficulty." In 
harmony with this idea the supernatural in 
the affairs of men is constantly slighted 
whenever it is referred to. St. Francis' di- 
vine call to his life work is not spoken of as 
a real supernatural contact, but as a mere 
impression that he believed had come from 
God. "He thought he heard the divine com- 
mand to restore the fallen house of God." 



122 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Similarly Luther is delivered out of the 
hands of his enemies, not by a watchful 
providence that rules behind all human con- 
fusion, but simply by "the favorable turn of 
political events," and George Muller's Bristol 
orphanage was supported, "he believed/' 
largely by direct answer to prayer. But the 
author's hostility to the idea of direct divine 
interference comes out even more definitely 
on pages 481 and 482 where he mentions sev- 
eral things in the life of the Reformation 
Church that link it rather with medievalism 
than with the modern world. Among these 
he lists original sin, other worldliness, and 
"the immediacy and arbitrariness of the di- 
vine relations with the world. " It is inter- 
esting to note, also, in this connection, that 
the author does not accept the miracle of Je- 
sus' resurrection as historical. 

But the most serious criticism of this 
work, from the point of view of Historic 
Christianity, is that he makes the gospel an 
evolution of the first centuries, rather than 
the direct teaching of the incarnate Son of 
God. Christ did not originate the gospel 
that has been preached in his name for two 
thousand years. "Christianity came into no 
empty world, but one filled with religious, 
philosophical and institutional ideas. By 
them, especially on Gentile soil, the simple 
primitive truths of Christianity were pro- 
foundly modified, resulting in the theology 
and institutions of the Old Catholic Church/' 
pp. 541-542. 

This idea the author develops extensively 
in the first hundred and fifty pages of his 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 128 



work. In the first forty-one he develops it 
as related to apostolic times, and in the next 
hundred as related to patristic times and on 
down to the times of the councils. In assign- 
ing work in this book, for students in the 
Course of Study, the Commission omitted the 
first forty-one pages. But this omission, 
while it does eliminate some of the balder 
statements of the author's position, does not 
omit the position. The student that begins 
to study his Church History on page forty- 
two begins immediately to learn that Jesus 
Christ did not give to the Church the Gospel 
that has been taught in his name, but that 
instead the simple, primitive truths he 
taught have been profoundly modified by 
Jewish and pagan influences. The para- 
graph already quoted in which the author 
says this is not from the front, but the back 
of the book. 

But let us examine the author's evolution- 
ary theory of Christian beginnings some- 
what in detail. First of all he tells us that 
Jesus' own conception of his work enlarged. 
At the start he seemed to have regarded his 
kingdom "as for Jews only. As he went on 
his conception of its inclusiveness grew." 
(p. 20). He went to Jerusalem at the end. 
not with any purpose of giving his life there 
for the ransom of the world from the guilt of 
its sins, but because he felt, "that at what- 
ever peril he must bear witness in Jerusa- 
lem." (p. 19). He did not actually rise 
from the dead, but his disciples did come to 
have a conviction that death was not the end 
of him. How this conviction developed "is 



124 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



one of the most puzzling of historical prob- 
lems." (p. 21). Paul is in large measure the 
creator of Christianity as the centuries have 
known it. He wrought into it "much that 
came from his own rabbinic learning and 
Hellenic experience." The author is deeply 
appreciative of Paul, "his profound Chris- 
tian feeling lead him into a deeper insight 
into the mind of Christ than was possessed 
by any other of the early disciples." Paul 
as a Christian heart is profoundly at one 
with Christ; but "Paul the theologian is oft- 
en at variance with the picture of Christ pre- 
sented by the Gospels." p. 30. 

But we can only understand this position 
when we know exactly what the author 
makes Paul's contribution to be. On page 
31 he tells us that Paul's "degree of empha- 
sis on Christ's death was certainly new." 
Similarly, Mark "knew nothing of Paul's 
view of Christ's pre-existence. In his 
thought Christ was from his baptism the Son 
of God by adoption." p. 37. 

Matthew and Luke put the divine in Christ 
earlier, for them he was divine from his vir- 
gin birth, but they no more than Mark know 
anything of Paul's doctrine of a pre-existent 
Christ, p. 38. 

But Paul himself seems to have come short 
of the theological completeness of John's 
Gospel, which bears marked traces of his in- 
fluence. "Paul probably never in set terms 
called Christ, God." (p. 37). But in John's 
Gospel "a real though unexplained incarna- 
tion is taught: 'The Word became flesh and 
dwelt among us.' " The Gospel and Epistles 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 125 



which bear the name of John probably had 
their rise in Ephesus, where Paul had long 
taught. Its position is Pauline but devel- 
oped, p. 40. 

But Common Christianity in the Patris- 
tic Church, the period immediately following 
that of the apostles, had not risen to the level 
either of Paul's Gospel or that of the 
Johannine literature, it neither represented 
nor understood either of them. At this time 
Christianity amounted to little more than 
loyalty to Christ as the divine revealer of the 
true God and of a simple strenuous morality, 
p. 42. 

This whole evolution of Christian truth is 
brought to a decisive climax at Nicaea, where 
through the influence of Constantine the 
Athanasian formulations were adopted, (p. 
117). The doctrine of Christ's Deity is, 
then, not his own truth of himself clearly un- 
derstood from his resurrection forward, but 
is an idea that gradually developed, and was 
finally fixed for Christian faith by the politi- 
cal influence of a pagan emperor whose chief 
interest was to preserve the unifying and 
stabilizing influences of the Church upon his 
dominions. 

Beyond Nicaea the author carries the evo- 
lution of some of the lesser details of the 
Church's Christology, down as far as Ohalce- 
don. Here he tells us it became fixed. He 
gives this evaluation of that final position: 
"It was true to the fundamental conviction 
of the church that in Christ a complete reve- 
lation of God is made in terms of a genuine 
human life." p. 152. 



126 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



As we have read this very moderate ap- 
preciation of the conclusion of the great 
Christological controversy, which preserved 
Christianity as the faith of God Incarnate 
the Redeemer, we confess an uncertainty as 
to the author's position. He begins the 
story of Jesus with the ministry of John the 
Baptist, whom he refers to as, "in the 
thought of the early Christians the 'forerun- 
ner' of the Messiah." There is no reference to 
the virgin birth, the historical resurrection 
is rejected, the ascension is unmentioned. 
We need to notice too, the author's distinc- 
tion between the teachings of Jesus and the 
teaching of his disciples about him. He sep- 
arates these the one from the other, and 
makes the disciples personally responsible 
for the latter. What do all these things 
mean? Is the author a Trinitarian, does he 
believe in the pre-existent eternal Son, and 
in his literal Incarnation? Perhaps, though 
if he does, we cannot but feel, that he has 
taken a strange way of planning his his- 
tory. 

But whatever may be his position as to 
Christ's person, whether He is fully Chris- 
tian, or somewhat Socinian in his drift, of 
this we are sure, he misrepresents the fun- 
damental conviction of the primitive Church. 
As we have read the New Testament its fun- 
damental conviction is that Jesus Christ is 
God made manifest in the flesh dying and 
rising again to redeem a race from the guilt 
of sin. Alongside of this the author's idea 
that Christ stood to the primitive Church 
simply as "a complete revelation of God in 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 127 



terms of a genuine human life," looks mea- 
gre indeed. 

We might call attention to the fact that 
Professor Faulkner, of Drew Theological 
Seminary, dissents from Professor Walker 
almost constantly in this whole discussion. 
He tells us in his review of this book in the 
Christian Advocate, August 21, 1919, after 
some complimentary remarks, that the book 
is "aggressively liberal." And then there 
follows a list of direct contradictions to 
Walker's positions. We will quote somewhat 
extensively from Dr. Faulkner's article. He 
says: "Paul the theologian is not 'often at 
variance with the picture of Christ' in the 
Gospels. The most that could be said is that 
he gives a more developed picture than, say, 
Mark. The Gospels are dated much too late. 
Fifty is a better date for Mark, and not long 
after sixty all the Gospels except John were 
probably in existence. According to the best 
manuscripts Paul does 'in set terms' call 
Christ God. Why say that Mark knew noth- 
ing of Christ's pre-existence? All we can 
say is that he does not teach it in so many 
words because that did not come within his 
scope. It is not true that Mark gives 'a very 
different interpretation' of Christ from 
Paul's. It is better to say that Mark gives 
no 'interpretation' only a story of facts told 
briefly for Romans. It is misleading to say 
that Matthew and Luke do not have 'Paul's 
doctrine of pre-existence.' Why should they 
have? They imply pre-existence, and their 
gospels need Paul's as a logical sequel. 
Probably eighty-five, ninety-five would be a 



128 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



more correct date for John's Gospel, and the 
animus of 'that gospel is misconceived. John 
deliberately omits much in the others, but 

his picture of Christ is not another but a 
fuller." 

This is Professor Faulkner's criticism of 
our author's treatment of Apostolic Chris- 
tianity. We find him similarly opposed to 
the author's views with respect to Patristic 
Christianity, and the Church of the age of 
the great Councils. Dr. Faulkner's position 
can be found in his, "Crises of the Early 
Church," published in 1912. In this book he 
tells the story of one crisis in the early 
Church after another, and so reviews the en- 
tire field of primitive teaching. 

His conclusion is that from the beginning 
and uninterruptedly the Church has recog- 
nized the Deity and Redemption of Christ. 
Nicaea but defined in philosophical language 
what had always been the vital faith of the 
Church. Athanasius won in that great 
fourth century controversy not because of 
the influence of the Emperor, but because he 
convinced the great majority of the delegates 
that his views were necessary to the ade- 
quate definition of their common faith. Pro- 
fessor Faulkner gives to the Church, as a 
result of his study of history, a reasonable 
basis for her faith. He makes Nicaea and 
Chalcedon philosophical definitions of the 
vital belief that was held continuously from 
the beginning, and that gained definite ex- 
pression in Matthew, Mark and Luke as well 
as John and Paul, and that had come in the 
first place from Christ. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 129 



And with respect to the whole Patristic 
Church Prof. Faulkner definitely asserts 
that it held continuously this common Chris- 
tian deposit. He mentions the fathers, be- 
ginning with those who knew the apostles : 
Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertull- 
ian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, 
and Athanasius. 

In all this Professor Faulkner disclaims 
that he is an apologist, he is an historian. 
He is simply saying that the other view is 
poor history, no matter what may be its re- 
lation to Christian doctrine. But we want 
to point out again that Professor Walker's 
view is not only bad history, but from the 
Christian point of view it is destructive. 
The Incarnation must be surrendered, if his 
account and interpretation of New Testa- 
ment and primitive Christian history is al- 
lowed to stand. If the Deity of Christ was 
never thought of until his figure had been 
gone from the stage of history for more than 
a generation, then it is unbelievable. The 
doctrine of his Deity is too big a conclusion 
to hang upon the slender thread of evidence 
he allows to us. 

A Christ who began his work by trying to 
establish a little Jewish kingdom; whose 
ideas, only later, grew to universal dimen- 
sions; who never to the last purposed his 
death at Jerusalem, but went there only 
foreseeing its great probability; Who was 
crucified, died and was buried, and of whom 
this is historically the end ; who never taught 
his own pre-existenee and God-hood, — that 
such a Christ at the end of half a century or 



130 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



so should have come to be looked upon as 
God Incarnate is a view so out of proportion 
as to be impossible. 

But this proposition does not adequately 
put the difficulty of the author's position. 
We need to add that according to Mark 
Christ was looked upon as an average hu- 
man being who became in some sense divine 
by adoption at his baptism. That Matthew 
and Liuke put behind his life a supernatural 
birth, and made him divine from the begin- 
ning. That Paul,, who probably never saw 
him, and certainly never associated with 
him in his flesh, gave to the Church the be- 
lief of his pre-existence. And that an un- 
known writer, who had felt the influence of 
Paul, and who wrote in Ephesus about the 
beginning of the second century gave to it 
that of his essential Deity and Incarnation. 

We only add that if this is the story of 
Christ, and if this is the history of belief in 
him as God Incarnate, then personally our 
faith in this truth is at an end. We surren- 
der Historic Christianity from end to end. 
Professor Walker's position is Socinian. 
Whatever may be his personal estimate of 
the Savior the influence of his Church His- 
tory is toward a human Christ, a Christ who 
might be the divinest of divine men, but no 
more. 

We will not attempt to answer the ques- 
tion that must be in many minds, as to why 
the Commission on Courses of Study have 
put this book in the course for the training 
of Methodist preachers. Certainly they can- 
not excuse themselves on the ground that 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 131 



the first forty-one pages of the book are not 
assigned for examinations : for the opinions 
set forth there are carried forward and com- 
pleted later, in the sections that are as- 
signed, and the later ideas absolutely pre- 
suppose the earlier propositions. Professor 
Walker's views are divergent from the point 
of view of Historic Christianity, and of 
Methodism. He doubtless would not hesi- 
tate a moment to admit the fact. His views 
may be acceptable for the liberal wing of 
Congregationalism, Which has veered over 
toward Unitarian opinions, but they are not 
acceptable for Methodism, which is fixed un- 
changeably upon the foundation of historic 
belief. The action of the General Confer- 
ence of 1920 at Des Moines made this per- 
fectly clear; and the commission on Courses 
of Study was given the most definite instruc- 
tion in regard to this matter. 

But, in conclusion, whatever may be the 
explanation of how it has occurred, this is 
what has occurred. Under the present 
Courses of Study it is practically certain 
that none of the younger men coming into 
our ministry will get a view of Christian be- 
ginnings consistent with our established 
teachings and beliefs. (Of course our refer- 
ence is entirely to those young men whose 
theological training is taken in the Confer- 
ence courses.) Professor Walker's Church 
History, and Professor Rail's two books are 
the three books that deal in detail with this 
'general field. If, being dissatisfied with 
Rail they turn to Walker, they are presented 
with an opinion, decidedly more radical and 
divergent. 



132 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Rail makes the virgin birth uncertain, 
Walker ignores it. Rail makes Paul and 
Luke differ as to the resurrection and ascen- 
sion, Walker denies the first and ignores the 
second. Rail and Walker agree that Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem for a purpose other 
than to give his life a sacrifice for the sins 
of the world. They agree, too, in denying 
to St. John the authorship of the Gospel 
that bears his name, and in making thi3 
writing dependent upon Paul's influence. 
Neither of them accepts Redemption or Jus- 
tification in the historic sense as established 
in Methodism. What is the young man to 
do? He is beginning his training. He is 
being introduced to fields of thought to 
which he is entirely a stranger. He has no 
foundation for a personal judgment. He 
has no choice but to believe What is set be- 
fore him, or else to fight it by sheer will 
force and without other assistance. He has 
not even two views to choose between. Both 
the views that are presented to him are di- 
vergent, only one is more so. 

This is the situation in which the new 
course of study is placing the young men of 
Methodism. What are they to do? They 
must study these books, and if they express 
their dissent they are likely to be told, as 
some of them have been told, that they must 
believe these things. They are even likely, 
if they persist in their refusal to accept such 
novel and destructive positions, to be ridi- 
culed as upstarts venturing to differ with 
learned men. These things have already 
been done this very quadrennium since these 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 133 



books were approved by the Board of Bish- 
ops last June. 

Certainly we have no question as to the sin- 
cerity, spirituality or devotion of any of these 
authors. But neither have we any question 
of the sincerity, spirituality or devotion of 
Arms or of Ohanning, or of Cardinal Gib- 
bons. But earnestness, spirituality and de- 
votion in an author does not guarantee that 
his book will be an expression of Methodist 
Theology, and this is the only question un- 
der discussion. Walker's position is diverg- 
ent from the point of view of Methodism and 
of Historic Christianity. 



CHAPTER XII. 



The Main Points. 

By Charles Reynolds Brown. 

HARLES Reynolds Brown, is, as 
is generally known, the Dean of 
Yale School of Religion. His 
style as a writer is engaging 
and lucid. His little book, "The 
Main Points," is thoroughly 
readable. It is divided into eleven chapters 
covering : 

1. The Divinity of Jesus Christ. 

2. The Atonement. 

3. The Work of the Holy Spirit. 

4. The Authority of the Bible. 

5. The Utility of Prayer. 

6. The Question of Conversion. 

7. Salvation by Faith. 

8. The Christian Church. 

9. The Hope of Immortality. 

10. The Final Judgment. 

11. The Use of a Creed. 

Dr. Brown's book is not technical, it is 
written for the lay mind, and much that it 
says is said both well and finely. H5s atti- 
tude as to the Deity of Christ is positive ; he 
is a Trinitarian ; he recognizes fully both the 
personality and works of the Holy Spirit ; he 
treats prayer as a real force, God responds 
to it, it does things, nature's laws do not 
shut God outside his own world. 

134 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 135 



But upon Atonement, the authority of the 
Bible, upon justification by faith, and upon 
Conversion, the author comes decidedly 
short of the full Christian position. His at- 
titude, also, upon the final judgment is hesi- 
tating. He presents arguments for and 
against three views : that of the universalist, 
that of the annihilationist, and that of those 
who hold to the eternity of rewards and pun- 
ishments. The only conclusion of his book 
is to leave the whole matter open. His own 
inclination, it would seem, is toward the view 
which makes rewards and punishments eter- 
nal, but he does not definitely accept this 
teaching. 

The careful reader of this important chap- 
ter of Dr. Brown's work will doubtless feel a 
keen disappointment. He will probably be 
inclined to the opinion that the author could 
have done something much stronger with 
the Biblical and credal items he accepts, if 
only he had taken more time. For example, 
he might have related to his problem the 
great conception advanced by Professor Olin 
Alfred Curtis in his volume, "The Christian 
Faith," namely, that in the instant of death 
all the choices of life sweep before self-con- 
sciousness for final review, and that there 
each man finally finishes and closes his life's 
attitude toward Christ and his salvation. 
This one tremendous idea has the most far- 
reaching bearing upon every objection to the 
idea of a final judgment. Before it every 
moral objection, such as these offered by the 
author, melts away as snow under the rays 
of the tropical sun. That Dr. Brown makes 



136 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



no use of such a deeply penetrating idea, 
and is so easily satisfied to leave the impor- 
tant truth of the future prospect for the 
wicked entirely enshrouded in mystery, ar- 
gues probably, that his chapter was hurried- 
ly prepared. 

But we turn now to the consideration of 
our real criticisms of this engaging book, 
namely, its defective position as to the 
Atonement, as to Justification by Faith, as to 
the authority of the Bible, and as to Conver- 
sion. Upon each of these truths Dr. Brown 
takes about the familiar "liberal" position. 

First the Atonement. In handling the 
Atonement Dr. Brown first outlines three 
theories that have been offered to explain it, 
namely, that it was a moral satisfaction, 
that it was a governmental expediency that 
it was a moral influence upon the hearts of 
sinful men. These three he says cover the 
ground in this section of our traditional 
theology. All three he rejects. The first 
is unjust, the second is a make-shift, 
the third is superficial. Then for quite 
a space he presents arguments in support of 
this negative position. He says, "If there 
were barriers on God's part which demand- 
ed the death of an innocent victim before 
forgiveness could be extended to the peni- 
tent, Jesus does not seem to know about 
them." p. 37. Again he says, "The very 
words 'reconciliation,' 'atonement,' 'propitia- 
tion,' 'justification,' never occur in the four 
Gospels at all/' p. 40. He argues that the 
sacrificial ritual of the Old Testament can- 
not be the antitype of Christ's cross because 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 137 



"the choicer spirits of the Old Testament 
knew the mind of God sufficiently to see that 
he forgave men then, not on account of the 
bloody sacrifice, but on account of their pen- 
itence and faith." p. 41. 

The author finally concludes by offering 
this as the interpretation of the idea of the 
atonement. That Christ's suffering" for us 
was like that of Hosea's in his effort to save 
his fallen wife, suffering that was simply in- 
cidental to the practical expedients he made 
use of to accomplish her recovery. Christ 
did not go to the cross to accomplish any- 
thing for us. His cross w T as not a divine 
purpose. It was simply something inciden- 
tal. His purpose was only to preach and 
teach God's holy love, to foe loyal to this min- 
istry at any cost, and to win us from sin. 

In harmony with this idea he finds the 
analogy of Christ's suffering in the physi- 
cian who "robs himself of sleep, hurries 
through his meals, carries the anxieties of a 
hundred households at a time and dies all too 
soon, having laid his life on the altar of the 
community's improved 1 health." Then fol- 
lows a list of other self-sacrifices. School 
teachers in their sacrifice of nerve force, 
railroad engineers in various relations, par- 
ents in giving up their larger comforts for 
the education of their children. "All this," 
says the author, "is of the nature of atone- 
ment." p. 50. 

We hardly need to point out that all this is 
as remote from the New .Testament atone- 
ment as an ant hill is from a mountain peak. 
Any one familiar with the teaching of Jesus 



138 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



or of his apostles will feel this instantly. 
Nor do we need to point out that it is equal- 
ly remote from the position of the great 
Church formularies. These all define the 
atonement as a propitiation, as the basis of 
justification. And these words are New Tes- 
tament words, whether they are Gospel 
words or not. But what is this? Can the 
Church allow a distinction between its Gos- 
pels and its Epistles? Certainly it cannot, 
if it means to preserve any doctrine of in- 
spiration worth keeping. 

But then, too, the ideas conveyed by these 
words are Gospel ideas. In all four Gospels 
Jesus is pictured as having foreseen his 
cross from the beginning, and as having ap- 
proached it not simply as foreseeing it, but 
also as fore-purposing it. He went to Jeru- 
salem to give his life a ransom for many. 
His blood was for the remission of sins. 

All the New Testament writers look upon 
the cross of Christ as an ethical achieve- 
ment that makes possible the forgive- 
ness of sins. It is a propitiation for sins. It 
stands as the completed work of redeeming 
love, in which divine righteousness finds full 
expression, so that God is, as St. Paul said, 
perfectly true to his righteousness and is yet 
the justifier of them that believe on Jesus. 

Let us set forth the contrasts between this 
view and that of the author. The New Tes- 
tament makes Christ's cross an amazing 
thing, an achievement of isolated grandeur. 
Dr. Brown stands it simply as one among 
many sacrifices. The New Testament makes 
the cross a divine purpose. Dr. Brown 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 139 



makes it purely incidental. The New Testa- 
ment finds in the cross a note of awful ethi- 
cal majesty, something: that harmonizes with 
earthquake and thunder, with suffering and 
death. Dr. Brown finds in it nothing of the 
kind. The New Testament sees in the cross 
a sufficient salvation for all men, however 
helpless and guilty, who become united by a 
personal attitude of self -abandoning trust to 
the sublime divine and human personality 
who suffered and died there for them. Its 
message is the glad cry, "Look and live." 
But Dr. Brown sees in the cross only a su- 
preme devotion that can help us only as we 
imitate its splendor in our lives. 

So much for the author's conception of 
the Atonement. We now pass to its ideas 
concerning salvation by faith. In the past 
"salvation by faith" and "justification by 
faith" have been used as synonymous ex- 
pressions. But "liberal" theology has 
dropped the latter, and uses the former be- 
cause it can empty out of it all forensic and 
redemptional ideas. Justification by faith 
cannot mean anything but that we are in 
some way separated from the guilt of our 
sins by the sacrifice of Christ. But salva- 
tion by faith can mean that by an attitude of 
general trustfulness toward God we get the 
benefit of personal relationship to him. It is 
in this more generalized and less ethical 
sense that the expression is used in current 
"liberal*" theology ; and iit is thus that the 
author uses it here. Faith is, then, for the 
author, a trust in the general goodness of 
God. It is not at all a trust in anything that 



140 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Christ achieved for us upon the cross. It is 
not necessary that we should point out the 
wide divergence between the two views. 

The author's illustrations of saving 
faith are such as Jean Valjean and his 
faith in the Bishop of D., the Old Tes- 
ment sentence, "thou desirest not sacri- 
fice, else would I give it," the parable 
of the Prodigal Son, and Jesus' treat- 
ment of Zacchaeus. But does it need to 
be pointed out that the New Testament 
plumbs vastly deeper into the ethical love of 
God than the Old, or that the parable of the 
Prodigal Son is a story of the love of God 
and not at all a discussion of the ethical pro- 
cesses of the divine love in forgiving sin? 
Similarly in Jesus' treatment of Zacchaeus 
and other sinners in the Gospels we see 
simply the fact of forgiveness, and not at 
all its ethical foundation. The Gospels do, 
however, give abundant expression to this 
ethical foundation, as every one familiar 
with the New Testament knows. 

One other consideration. Man's morail 
and spiritual faculties are, according to 
Christianity, abnormal through the fall. 
"Liberal" opinions would say they are not 
completely evolved, that man is only in the 
process of becoming moral. Very well then, 
in either case we must expect that our moral 
judgments will be found to be blunted and 
defective. It is not to be wondered at, then, 
that our sense of the awf ulness of sin is sad- 
ly short; that we cannot understand the 
earthquake and the pestilence; that we find 
it difficult to see why God cannot forgive 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 141 



easily, out of hand ; or why he needs to take 
the whole sin penalty up into his own life 
in order that he may freely justify sinners. 
It takes an artist fully to understand an art- 
ist. It takes ethical holiness fully to trace 
the ethical purposes of God. Certainly, the 
matter is perfectly clear, the Christian relig- 
ion is God's revelation, not man's discovery ; 
and its deepest truths are even yet beyond 
our easy comprehension. We glimpse them 
rather than see them fully. It is presuming 
for us as individuals to reject by our marred 
standards some revelation of God. The test 
of God's word is with the more manifold 
powers of the generations. 

In this conception we have a good basis 
for our criticism of the author's view of the 
Bible. He regards it, certainly, as contain- 
ing a divine revelation, and as being indeed 
the book of books. And the general outline 
of his thought, that there is in the Bible an 
increasing revelation coming to its fulness 
in Christ, will doubtless be universally ad- 
mitted. The epistle to the Hebrews gives the 
same idea. God had spoken to man in many 
times and forms, but finally he had spoken 
in his Son. But the author's view of Scrip- 
ture is nevertheless halting. Even at the cli- 
max of revelation in Christ, the apostles are 
presented as having failed perfectly to "ap- 
prehend the mind of Christ as it stands at 
last revealed in the Gospels." (p. 89). And 
we are told that men are to be invited "to 
read the Scriptures and make discrimina- 
tions, deciding that this passage is the abso- 
lute truth of God and the other is due to the 



142 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



human limitation of the writer," and again 
that "Every man must decide many points 
for himself, with the best light obtainable, 
but at his own risk." (pp. 93-95) , Doubt- 
less the author has exercised this right in de- 
ciding that the Old Testament sacrificial rit- 
ual was not a divine revelation pre-figuring 
Christ's cross, and that the New Testament 
doctrines of the Atonement and of Justifica- 
tion are misconceptions of God's perfect love 
due probably to the human limitation of the 
writers. 

Every careful and serious thinker must 
realize that man needs a better revelation 
than this which the author offers to him. 
Such a book is not sufficient to be his rule of 
faith and practice. Instead it needs to be 
corrected iby man's fallible intellect, con- 
science and heart. Nor is such an errant 
book worthy to stand in contact with the In- 
carnation. By the author's principles we do 
not know when we are in touch with the real 
mind of Christ, except as our own con- 
sciences and hearts approve the record. Je- 
sus wrote nothing. We know him only 
through what his disciples caught of his 
truth. If what they caught and wrote is 
miscolored or distorted by their human limi- 
tations in the Epistles it is also in the Gos- 
pels. It is difficult to believe in a divine In- 
carnation of which God himself was so care- 
less as to its preservation. 

In Historic Christianity the Bible is very 
much more than a book of mingled truth and 
error to be accepted only in so far as it meets 
with approval by the individual conscience. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 143 



It is an authoritative book, certified in mani- 
fold ways. It is certified by its history, by 
its supernatural pre-visions and their ful- 
fillments, by its appeal to the conscience and 
heart of humanity across the centuries, by 
its teleology, by the crowning of its teleology 
in Christ, and supremely by the fact that its 
literature nourished has spiritual life and 
that he accepted it as the Word of God. 

The Christian Bible with its increasing 
purpose, crowned in the New Testament is 
the rule of faith and practice for all believ- 
ers. It cannot foe allowed that our blunted 
moral and spiritual faculties shall sit in 
judgment upon its truths. 

And now turning, finally, to the matter of 
Conversion, we find that the author's posi- 
tion here is also defective. The careful read- 
er of Dr. William Newton Clarke's Theology 
will be impressed by the fact that his feeling 
is often richer than his definitions. One 
catches deeper emotional values in his para- 
graphs than he ever formulates. The same 
is true of Dr. Brown. And it is true of him 
in this chapter on Conversion. There are a 
number of sentences in which the author af- 
firms that God gives new life to faith, and 
yet his whole point of view comes far short 
of the Christian truth of man's fall and 
need of supernatural regeneration. 

The author presents Jesus as teaching 
that all men have in varying degrees gone 
wrong, but there is nowhere in his volume a 
suggestion that man is deeply abnormal in 
his whole moral and spiritual life, and that 
he can only foe rescued from this depravity 



144 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



by a great supernatural salvation. Instead 
Conversion is defined as "The total change 
of purpose and direction in the life of the 
man." (p. 128). Similarly the Prodigal Son 
is converted when he comes home. (p. 135.) 
Or again, "It is the part of every one to meet 
the Father in his house, at his table, to speak 
to him in prayer ; and on the whole wide field 
of human effort to strive to do the Father's 
will. This is being born again, this is enter- 
ing upon Christian life. In all this the man is 
aided by that spirit of grace which is not far 
from anyone of us when once we invite his 
help." p. 136. 

Manifestly, then, Conversion in this vol- 
ume is simply a divinely assisted purpose to 
do right. No wonder the author says on 
page 127 that he does not intend to ask Cal- 
vin, Wesley, or Bunyan what it is. 

We would ask the reader to present to 
himself two questions : First, did not Jesus 
and his apostles sadly misexpress and exag- 
gerate the truth here if the author's view is 
correct? Jesus said, that which was born of 
the flesh was only flesh. He also said that 
men had to be born again of the Spirit be- 
fore they could so much as discern the King- 
dom. And St. Paul said that to be in Christ 
was to be a new creation. Human experi- 
ence, even in the case of those who have 
never gone into outbreaking sins, abundant- 
ly confirms this Biblical statement, St. Paul 
himself is an illustration of it, and so it 
Luther and Wesley. 

But second, Dr. Brown's idea of Conver- 
sion might as well have been built upon the 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 145 



truth of the Shepherd Psalm as upon the 
teaching of Jesus. There is no truth of di- 
vine watchcare and fatherliness expressed 
in Jesus' teaching that is not richly present 
in the Shepherd Psalm. Why, then, did not 
the writing of that psalm produce the New 
Testament dispensation? The fact of his- 
tory is that Pentecost did not follow the 
writing of the Shepherd Psalm, but that it 
waited for Jesus to die, to rise again from 
the dead, and to ascend into heaven. What 
is the explanation of this delay? 

It will not do to say that it was the differ- 
ence between an idea and a life that made 
the difference between the influence of the 
Shepherd Psalm and the teaching of Jesus, 
for Jesus' revolutionary influence failed en- 
tirely until he had ceased to be a life and had 
become,] humanly speaking, a mere memory. 
There is no reasonable explanation for the 
epochal fact of Pentecost but the Christian 
belief that Jesus' cross, resurrection, and as- 
cension achieved something, and made possi- 
ble the rich outpouring of the Spirit ; a thing 
impossible until after the Atonement was 
completed. Manifestly, then, Conversion is 
no mere divine help in doing right such as 
Old Testament saints enjoyed, it is some- 
thing vastly deeper. Jesus expressed it in 
this contrast : that before Pentecost the Spir- 
it had been among men, but that from Pen- 
tecost forward he should dwell within men. 

The Christian Church will gain nothing 
by compromising with the naturalistic ten- 
dency of the times. In the Bible depravity 
is a universal abnormality of man's whole 



146 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



moral and spiritual life, and: salvation is a 
great supernatural deliverance involving 
Conviction for sin, Justification, Regenera- 
tion, and Sanctification. Christianity is the 
truth, and Christianity must be kept what 
the ages with one voice conceived it to be. 
Peter and John, Paul and Bernard, Luther 
and Wesley were right. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY 
BY WM. D. HAYES, 

ROF. Hayes' book carries on its 
title page the statement that the 
author is Professor of Sociolo- 
gy in the University of Illinois. 
It is rather a large volume con- 
taining some seven hundred 
pages. It goes into the subject of Sociology 
deeply and chiefly from the theoretical point 
of view. It shows wide research and broad 
learning. Its fundamental belief, however, 
is Darwinism, and this fact would make it 
impossible for the book to be sympathetic 
with the Christian and Biblical point of 
view. 

It would seem that so extreme and theo- 
retical a work as Professor Hayes* would be 
more adapted for a university course in 
which the student was planning to specialize 
in this subject than for a text book in a 
course for ministerial training. The minis- 
ter needs practical ideas in Sociology. Of 
course no book that undermines the minis- 
ter's own Christian interpretation of life can 
help him. In the Church, Christ, not Dar- 
win, is the final authority as to belief ; and a 
book that substitutes Darwin for Christ can- 
not be helpful. 

The reader of Professor Hayes' book 
ought to be equipped with enough independ- 
147 




148 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



ent scientific information to know when the 
author is setting forth real scientific cer- 
tainties and when he is setting forth mere 
personal beliefs. A belief is one thing, and 
a scientific demonstration is another. A be- 
lief does not become science even by its gen- 
eral acceptance in scientific circles. Dar- 
winism was once so accepted, and today it 
is not. A belief only becomes science, in the 
sense of authoritative, when it has been 
demonstrated by real data. 

Rut, coming to Professor Hayes' position 
more in detail. Our objection to his book 
from the Christian point of view is that in 
philosophy he is a Darwinian, in ethics he is 
a utilitarian, and that in his attitude toward 
the supernatural, which he brings into his 
discussion in his treatment of the evolution 
of religion, he is halting if not actually hos- 
tile. 

For Professor Hayes the case is closed. 
Man is an evolution from lower animals ; and 
even his moral nature finds a similar expla- 
nation. Man is from two hundred to five 
hundred thousand years old. (p. 454) . His 
ancestry is probably an extinct form of ape 
(p. 461) , that is, the present ape and he have 
a common ancestry. Indeed the author tells 
us that biologically man is closer to the old 
world apes than these are to the apes of 
South America, and that it is chiefly social 
evolution that has raised men above the 
brute world, (p. 462) . He speaks of a per- 
iod of evolution when the human mind was 
about equal to that of a two-year old child 1 . 
He <say* that them men were superior to the 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 149 



highest animals chiefly in that they possess- 
ed better organs of articulation, (p. 511). 

He asserts that toward the close of the 
period of biological evolution, social evolu- 
tion began, and that this continued after 
man became fixed as a species. During 
these periods man survived in the struggle 
for existence because of social rather than of 
physical superiority, (pp. 279ff, 512). He 
then carries forward man's social evolution, 
under which he included the development of 
conscience. Conscience is a product of so- 
cial interaction upon the individual. Social 
utility is the principal factor, although the 
parental and altruistic instincts are also fac- 
tors. Thus, he says, that each man's self in- 
terest makes him alert against anyone Who 
does something that, if done to him, would 
hurt him. The interest is selfish, but the re^ 
suit is a useful folk sense, a moral value, 
(p. 546) . He, of course, rejects the Kantian 
doctrine of a categorical imperative, (p. 
549). He says, "Biological evolution has 
gone only part way toward furnishing us 
with a conscience. Moreover there seems to 
be little or no ground for hope that the in- 
born esthetic equipment for moral discrimi- 
nation will ever become more complete, for 
we cannot see any effective natural selection 
weeding out those who are in this respect 
less fit." (p. 544). His statement of all the 
factors in the evolution of conscience include 
the following: sense of pleasure and pain, 
reason, altruism, esthetic discrimination, 
imitation, radiation and desire for approval. 
He concludes: "Conscience, instead of being 



150 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



any single faculty may be far more truly re- 
garded as the net result of the individual 
and social reactions of all man's faculties up- 
on the problem of conduct," (p. 545 ; see 
also pp. 442, 462, 512, 541, 226). 

After having finished the explanation of 
conscience by evolution the author next ex- 
plains inspiration, answers to prayer and 
miracles by the evolved powers of the mind, 
(pp. 565-569). Inspiration is an upgush 
from the rich treasure and constant activity 
of the subconscious mind. This is the expla- 
nation of inspiration in art, and in this "re- 
spect as in certain others, religious revela- 
tion resembles art." Similarly prayer tends 
to answer itself because the eager expec- 
tancy of believing prayer is favorable to up- 
springings from the subconscious mind. The 
visions of the dying have a like explanation. 
In the condition of mental disturbance at- 
tending dissolution, beliefs are likely to 
visualize themselves. Miracles also are all 
explained. They are nothing but the power 
of mind over body. The sick man cures him- 
self by expecting health. The author does 
not mean anything like so called Christian 
Science, but simply that the mental attitude 
controls the organ that is not functioning 
and starts it functioning again. Whether or 
no he would explain Jesus' miracles by this 
idea we cannot say. No more can we say 
whether the author means to exclude all 
overpowering experiences of the Holy Spirit 
when he classifies some as being identical 
with the extravagances of heathenism. But 
when we realize that he is discussing in this 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 151 



section the evolution of religion, his failure 
to note any exception is significant. 

One further matter, social utility seems to 
be the one major idea of the author. He 
never presents anything larger. The idea of 
reasoned conduct controlled with a view to 
social utility seems, even, to he his ideal. 
Jesus* Golden Rule he regards exclusively as 
a guide for outward action toward social 
ends, and not at all as an expression of in- 
ner love. (p. 592). Similarly, the adminis- 
tration of justice by the courts should be 
built entirely upon the basis of social utili- 
ty rather than on primitive man's feeling of 
retribution, a feeling that the modern man is 
outgrowing, (p. 613ff). This tendency of 
the author's thought toward reasoned prac- 
tical utility, rather than toward instinctive 
life in free manifestation is another inciden- 
tal mark of the great contrast between his 
views and those of the Bible and Christian- 
ity. But our criticisms follow so we forbear 
at this point. 

Before concluding this series of discus- 
sions we want to consider more carefully the 
present status of Darwinism; but at the 
present time we need to point out that Pro- 
fessor Hayes' ideas such as man's origin 
from some lower animal, his antiquity at 
two hundred thousand years or more, the 
period when he had the mind of a two-year- 
old child, are all of them non-scientific be- 
liefs that the author holds by personal 
choice, and indeed, in the face of a mass of 
contrary evidence. It is interesting to re- 
member in this connection, that Andrew 



152 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Martin Fairbairn in his philosophy of the 
Christian Religion asserts that the most of 
what the anthropologist tells us of the life 
of the prehistoric man is pure imagination. 
And Dr. Fairbairn's statement is the more 
significant when we stand Dr. Hayes' view, 
for example, that there was a period when 
man had the mind of a two-year-old child, 
along side of the fact that the older skulls 
are larger rather than smaller than those of 
the present time. Of course it is possible 
that those larger skulls housed inferior men- 
tality, but what is the evidence for such a 
condition ? 

We have three criticisms of the author's 
point of view here. First, he offers it as a 
science, when it is simply a creed. Second, 
his view, his creed, does violence to the 
moral intuitions of the soul. Third, his view 
contradicts the Christian truth of man's sin, 
fall and resulting race wide depravity. 

But more serious far is the author's atti- 
tude with respect to conscience and the 
whole moral field. The sublime conception 
of everlasting righteousness is unceremo- 
niously thrown out, and moral ideas are re- 
duced to nothing but esthetic preference and 
social utility. What deep violence this does 
to man's moral intuitions every one knows, 
who has at all lived or thought below the 
surface of things. The moral ideal, the ever- 
lasting righteousness of God, is, for the 
Christian believer, a sublime light that 
lightens every human soul. That light has 
been dimmed by depravity, certainly, but it 
nevertheless is a reality. When the author 
sacrifices this he sacrifices the soul of life. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 158 



But passing on, it is interesting to notice 
how easily he asserts that custom can make 
anything right. Fairbairn by a deeper study 
of the same class of facts shows that behind 
social approval there is the deeper disappro- 
val of conscience. And David Livingstone 
says that with the exception of polygamy and 
cannibalism he never found the African con- 
science holding right for wrong, or wrong 
for right. The lay mind has here a differ- 
ence of authorities, and can take its choice. 
And the moral explanation of cannibalism, 
which is a phenomenon to be classified along 
side of the so-called "ethical dualism," (the 
idea that there are different moral stand- 
ards, one applying to relations at home, 
and the other to relations with strang- 
ers) and the still persisting sense of race 
prejudice, must be sought for in that 
dimming of the light of conscience which 
was incident to the fall of man. Certain it 
is no one will deny that deep in the Christian 
conscience there is today a sense of univer- 
sal brotherhood, and that in the loftier 
reaches of Christian experience this sense 
becomes an actual social force ; yet the aver- 
age believer is far from realizing this ideal 
in his actual life. It is evident that in the 
Christian life itself we have an illustra- 
tion of social approval when more deeply 
the inner voice of conscience utters disap- 
proval. 

In the author's attitude toward con- 
science, we find again, a personal creed, not 
science. Rut his point of view here is fatal 
to Christianity. If conscience is only the 



154 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



voice of social utility ; if sin is not something 
that has guilt and deserves retribution; if 
retribution is not a fundamental ethical in- 
stinct, but instead only a primitive idea that 
had a certain social value in making possible 
the survival of the fittest and evolution — if 
these things are true, then as well make an 
end of the Bible at once. These ideas can no 
more be eliminated from the Bible, than 
leaves can be eliminated from a forest. Util- 
itarianism in ethics is as foreign to the 
Christian view of things as Atheism. The 
Biblical deity is no more fundamentally eter- 
nal reality and infinite cause than he is eter- 
nal righteousness. He is ethically aflame, 
righteousness is not a utility to the Biblical 
writers, it is a consuming personal passion. 
As Jesus said, man cannot live save as he is 
in constant touch with the divine holy will, 
with the divine ethical words. Darwinism 
contradicts Christianity at every point, but 
at no point more fatally than when man's 
moral life is robbed of authority and made a 
mere product of social evolution and utility. 

We hardly need to offer any criticism of 
the author's view of Inspiration, answered 
prayer and miracles. Everyone will imme- 
diately realize that his explanations are not 
science but creed, and that they are fatal to 
the Biblical supernatural. It is rather amus- 
ing to hear one talk so positively of the sub- 
conscious. Doubtless we know about as 
much of the subconscious mind and its pro- 
cesses as we knew about the North Pole 
when we were saying that it would be an 
open sea and the rest. What springs up out 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 155 



of the subconscious mind may as well be 
poured into it by the supernatural Spirit, for 
all we know to the contrary. The writer 
who says it is not, is asserting a creed, not 
speaking scientifically. But if religious in- 
spiration is an upspringing from the subcon- 
scious mind having no supernatural expla- 
nation, whence the uniqueness of the He- 
brew revelation ? And why are we not still 
producing revelational literature on a level 
with the New Testament? Similarly pray- 
er; who can say that answer to prayer is 
from man's own stored up resources rather 
than from deity ? And in as much as the one 
is, to say the least, as probable as the other, 
why not take the one that is morally and 
spiritually the richer ? And again, how does 
the author know that death-bed visions are 
not true contacts with the spirit world, 
which if a reality must be all about us ? How 
does he know that they are nothing but con- 
fused ideas of a mind in the midst of disso- 
lution, or a visualization created by the sub- 
conscious powers in response to the anxious 
eagerness of the passing soul. We cannot 
forbear remarking that we would hate such 
a God as the one who could rule in Professor 
Hayes' universe. A God who is as unknowa- 
ble as Spencer's great Unknown, a God who 
allows us to be deceived by our own subcon- 
scious powers, a God who does not come near 
us even in death, a God whose little utilitar- 
ian universe is too small to receive our re- 
spect not to say our admiration. 

If Professor Hayes is on the track of 
truth, then there is no truth and life be- 



im HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



comes a puppet show. If righteousness is 
not the everlasting* flame of being, if con- 
science is not the dimmed but burning light 
of life, if there is nothing higher than that 
which works to produce painlessness, noth- 
ing more majestic and inspiring than social 
utility, if prayer is unanswered or answered 
only by auto-reaction, if death is unlighted, 
if humanity has only reached this level of 
futility at the end of from two to five hun- 
dred thousand years of meaningless tears 
and blind despair then Schopenhauer is 
right and the truth of life is pessimism. 

But thank God, Professor Hayes is not 
writing science, he is writing a personally 
chosen creed, which has, to say the best of 
it, no more claim to our consideration than 
the great historic creeds of our sublime 
Christianity. We go with James Orr. It 
is historic Christianity with its sublime su- 
pernatural or Pessimism. He chose Chris- 
tianity and so do we. What place this nega- 
tive, naturalistic volume can have in a 
course of study for Methodist preachers we 
utterly fail to see. That it has scarcely any 
point of contact with Christ or his Gospel 
must be apparent to every one. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OUTLINE OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 
By Professor William Newton Clark. 

T will be generally conceded that 
Dr. Clarke's volume is one of 
the most readable of theologi- 
cal writings. In this respect it 
is comparable to Professor Cur- 
tis', "The Christian Faith" 
which the writer found as fascinating as 
Ruskin's essays, or Victor Hugo's fiction. In 
reading either Clarke or Curtis there is no 
sense of mental fatigue, both books throb 
with real living passion. 

But there is this notable difference be- 
tween them. Curtis' book is modern. He 
speaks to the modern man interpreting to 
him the changeless Gospel of the centuries, 
the Gospel incarnate Deity gave to a lost 
world. Curtis does not tone down Historic 
Christianity. He believes it, and relates it 
to all that is either scientific or demonstra- 
ble in modern thought. He keeps an author- 
itative Bible (though he does not teach the 
verbal inspiration theory), an objective 
atonement, a fallen race, and a great super- 
natural salvation. 

Clarke's book on the other hand is not 
truly modern. His position is neither that 
of the modern liberal thinker, nor that of 
Historic Christianity. His volume has the 
position of a sort of text book among the 
more conservative liberals. It is, from the 
157 




158 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



Christian point of view, defective as to the 
Bible, the Trinity, the Fall, the Atonement, 
Justification, the Second Coming of Christ. 

On the Trinity his position is an approach 
toward Sabellianism. He rejects the full 
personality of the several distinctions of the 
Godhead, and reduces them to three modes 
in one mental process. The Father is God 
knowing, the Son is God knowing himself, 
the Spirit is God knowing of himself as him- 
self. (See pages 170-174) . 

This idea only has the appearance of 
clearness. The fact is, it surrenders the 
New Testament position, that the Godhead 
is a tri-unity of personalities. Nothing less 
than full self-consciousness in each distinc- 
tion of the Godhead can explain the New 
Testament facts. If the Son is not a self- 
conscious personality from eternity and to 
eternity, then he could not have laid aside 
the divine glory, and have become incarnate 
through the womb of the Virgin. 

Professor Lewis, of Drew Theological 
Seminary, in his recent paper on the Trinity 
has, we believe, made a very notable contri- 
bution, in his suggestion, that personality is 
an incomplete idea, and that the real unity is 
the society of personalities. God would thus 
be three in personality though one in being ; 
and his unity would be at once metaphysical 
and ethical. He would be one in his eternal 
spiritual substance or essence, and one, also, 
by the eternal law of his holiness. 

But not to linger upon this matter, which 
is too involved for the brief discussions we 
are undertaking, we point out that Dr. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 159 



Clarke's view is not Trinitarian, and that it 
would make impossible a true Incarnation. 
The best Incarnation that he could consist- 
ently have on the basis of his view would be 
a human personality divinely endued in a 
most wonderful way. As a matter of fact, 
Clarke does not seem to have been hesitating 
as respects the Incarnation. It is interest- 
ing, however, to observe that those who have 
followed this liberal lead are quite frequently 
rejecting a true Incarnation. Take this as 
an illustration. It is from an article by Dr. 
J. C. Arbuckle, of Columbus, Ohio, in the 
Arena of the Methodist Review for January, 
1922. He says: "In the matter of pre-ex- 
istence, if self-conscious being is implied, 
then being iborn of a woman is utterly 
inconceivable." This sentence would seem 
to imply that the eternal personality of the 
Son, — for one cannot have personality with- 
out self-consciousness — is no longer accepta- 
ble to some of the "liberal" thinkers. We 
could give several other illustrations but we 
must pass on. 

Upon the subject of depravity, Professor 
Clarke is an evolutionist of the extreme 
type. He looks upon humanity as gradually 
evolving from the beasts. Thus he writes 
(on page 240ff) : "The race was born with 
passions of animalism and self-will that 
were not sinful until the higher life of the 
spirit had become developed." Then he con- 
tinues, "through the consent of the human 
will to the now, abnormal rule of the lower 
powers, what had before been innocent pass- 
ed into sin." He calls attention to the pos- 



160 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



sibility of interpreting man's sinfulness in 
two ways, and sets forth that, "According to 
the first of these views, sin entered by a fall 
from original goodness ; according to the 
second, sin entered through man's failure to 
rise into his normal life." But all of the 
weight of Professor Clarke's own opinion is 
put back of the evolutionary view. For him 
humanity has not fallen; simply it did not 
rise. Holding this evolutionary theory 
Clarke hopes for a development of hu- 
manity, in some future generation, out of 
its present sinful condition. That all this 
is anti-Biblical does not need to be pointed 
out; nor does it need to be pointed out, here, 
again, how utterly superficial is this view of 
sin and depravity. Manifestly, Clarke was 
captivated by the plausibility and vogue of 
Darwinism; and accepted its conclusions 
without a thorough consideration of their 
ethical significance. The deeper study of sin 
and depravity will show that the trouble is 
not a matter of animal tendencies but of 
spiritual self-intoxication. If lust and ap- 
petite were the only sins then animal tenden- 
cies might explain them. But for the sins of 
pride some other explanation must be 
sought. Anyone who has appreciated Jesus' 
severer condemnation of proud-hearted 
Phariseeism than of harlotry will know 
where he puts the center of gravity in his 
discussion of sin. But here is our brief con- 
clusion: Professor Clarke's view of sin is 
out of harmony with the Biblical doctrine 
and with the facts of life. 

On the remaining defects of the book we 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 161 



will let Professor John Alfred Faulkner, 
Professor of Church History at Drew Theo- 
logical Seminary, speak. His criticism of 
Clarke's work appeared in the Methodist 
Review of January, 1917. After some intro- 
ductory account of the book and appreciation 
of the author, Professor Faulkner says, that 
Clarke's chief departures from Historic 
Christianity are as follows: 1. "His doc- 
trine of Scripture. Here he is Ritschlian. 
The Bible is simply a record of revelation 
and serves all essential purposes when it is 
trustworthy, like Ridpath's History." 2. 
"His Doctrine of Atonement. His fear of 
Scripture is nowhere more clearly seen than 
in his explaining away the Biblical ideas of 
atonement. Even the great word propitia- 
tion he whittles away till it means almost 
nothing — a word that is the very heart of 
the Bible doctrine. His doctrine simmers 
down to the moral influence theory. Unlike 
Christ and Paul, Clarke sees nothing in the 
eternal veracities of God which called for the 
eternal atonement. He follows Ritschl in 
making the center of God's nature love only, 
which means that we have no God worthy of 
the name." 3. "His Doctrine of Justifica- 
tion. In harmony with the Scriptural doc- 
trine of atonement as ransom, or propitia- 
tion or substitution (of course spiritually 
and ethically conceived), is the New Testa- 
ment idea of justification by faith as a de- 
claring righteous of the sinner for his faith 
on account of Christ and his work. Follow- 
ing his treatment of Bible and atonement 
and his Ritschlian trend, Clarke harks back 
partly to Schleiermacher and partly to Ca= 



162 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



tholicism on justification, making it depend- 
ent on the new life and subsequent to it. Not 
only does this overturn the whole New Tes- 
tament idea of the salvation of sinners, but 
if Luther and Wesley had had this idea we 
would still have been living in the Middle 
Ages." 4. ''His Doctrine of the Last 
Things. In this general drift it is not sur- 
prising that Clarke denies both the Second 
Coming, which is declared in the Bible much 
more clearly and emphatically than the First 
Coming was, and the eternal punishment of 
the lost, which was almost axiomatic with 
Christ. This is due to the slight hold which 
Scripture has with our author and the strong 
hold which 'modern opinion' has with him." 

We add a further word. It is interesting 
to notice that Wesley in his sermon on Justi- 
fication by Faith specifically rejects Clarke's 
opinion. Clarke says on page 407, that " jus- 
tification implies and rests upon the begin- 
ning of the new divine life in man." And 
again, that when "the man has come by God's 
grace to be in relation to God where and 
what he ought to be, God, whose judgment is 
according to the truth, recognizes the real- 
ity, and looks upon him as an accepted man." 
But Wesley, on the contrary, says that justi- 
fication is pardon, that sinners are those 
who are justified, and that they are justified 
when they are sinners, not needing to wait 
until they have been sanctified. The ' 'lib- 
erals" generally have lost entirely this great 
Christian doctrine. Should the Church fol- 
low them it will quickly lose its power to 
save, and become a mere ethical culture so- 
ciety with good intentions but no evangel. 



CHAPTER XV. 



SOME MINOR ITEMS. 

HE preceding chapters have 
completed our major criticisms. 
There are, however, three items 
remaining to which we would 
refer briefly, before turning to 
some constructive matter with 
which we wish to close our consideration of 
the Course of Study. 

First, there is Dr. Washington Gladden's 
book, "The Christian Pastor and the Work- 
ing Church." While this is a comprehensive 
work, and has many excellences, we must 
nevertheless, classify it as rationalistic in 
its sympathies. Dr. Gladden's acceptance of 
the "advanced" point of view is not stressed ; 
but it does find repeated expression in his 
pages. We will notice one or two items. 

Dr. Gladden evidently wrote under a dou- 
ble misapprehension: one that evolution is 
really an established conclusion in science; 
the other that criticism's "assured results" 
are truly assured. He adjusts his volume to 
both ideas. Thus he writes on page 338 : "It 
is a time of transition in theological opin- 
ion; the great philosophical conceptions 
which underlie the theory of evolution enter 
into all our theological thinking and modify 
many of the statements of doctrine with 
which we have become familiar. Perhaps 
one reason why the careful instruction of 
163 




164 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



the young has been omitted is that the an- 
cient catechisms no longer represent the best 
thought of the Church, and the pastor is not 
able to see how he can adjust his teaching to 
these formularies." Similarly on page 180 
he writes : "The tremendous advance of the 
physical sciences, the rise of the philosophy 
of evolution, the prevalence of the method of 
historical criticism, have made necessary a 
restatement of many of the doctrines of re- 
ligion, and have swept the foundations from 
beneath the feet of multitudes who have not 
had time to adjust themselves to these rapid 
movements of mind." On page 236 the au- 
thor affirms that criticism has rendered un- 
tenable much of the older idea of revelation, 
and that the Sunday school teacher should be 
equipped with the new point of view and 
should teach it in the Sunday school classes. 
On page 399 the author speaks of child na- 
ture as "a natural gift for the formation of a 
Christian character, but a gift to be called 
forth, developed, guided." And the context 
of this statement is a rejection of the Chris- 
tian doctrine of Depravity. In putting the 
historic doctrine he means to reject, he of 
course puts it in an extreme form. But this 
is such a common procedure among the "ad- 
vanced" writers that the reader must not be 
confused by it. It is not simply some extrav- 
agant putting of the doctrine of Depravity 
that is antagonized and rejected by the cur- 
rent "liberal" theology, it is any putting of 
it. Any state of spiritual abnormality deep 
seated enough to explain Jesus' statement 
that life can only discern the things of the 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 165 



Kingdom when it is new born, whether it 
foe defined as "partial" or "total" Depravi- 
ty is decisive against the author's idea that 
Christian character is to be produced on the 
basis of natural equipment by means of 
training. Coe is right when he says that the 
Christian doctrines of Depravity and Regen- 
eration are in the way of the modern theory 
of development. It might be w T ell to remind 
ourselves here that Jesus Christ was not an 
evolutionist, although the theory had already 
been taught in his day. For him humanity 
was sinful and fallen, redeemable only by a 
great supernatural deliverance at once ethi- 
cal and dynamic. It is ethical in Justifica- 
tion. It is dynamic in Regeneration. The 
modern development theory, which denies 
Depravity, Justification and Regeneration, 
has nothing in common with Jesus save an 
admiration for his ethics and for his concep- 
tion of God as Father. We will not repeat 
here the discussion we developed earlier 
when considering books in the field of Relig- 
ious Psychology and Pedagogy, but the mat- 
ter is so important that we will set forth a 
contrasted statement of the Christian and 
the so-called "liberal" views. 

Christianity is self despairing; "liberal" 
Theology is self poised. Christianity, aban- 
doning all confidence in self and centering 
all hope in Christ develops in the heart a 
deep and humble gratitude ; "liberal" Theolo- 
gy does not and cannot develop this attitude. 
Christianity with its doctrine of Atonement 
is ethically intense, majestic, and yet won- 
drously gracious; "liberal" Theology has 



166 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



grace only at the cost of ethical majesty and 
depth. In Christianity the central idea is jus- 
tification by faith, its whole doctrinal system 
heads up into the idea of lost man's eth- 
ical trust in Christ crucified and risen again 
as his all-sufficient Saviour; "liberal" Theol- 
ogy on the contrary heads up into man's self- 
poised effort at service, and faith comes in 
only as a general confidence in the fatherly 
goodness of God. 

One of the delegates at the recent Method- 
ist Ecumenical in London put it quite com- 
prehensively, when he said, "We are substi- 
tuting the fatherhood of God for the justifi- 
cation by faith of our fathers." It is true, 
we are ; and the two ideas are not equivalent 
either ethically or psychologically. 

So much for Dr. Gladden's book. It is in 
many respects a great work, though its point 
of view is quite remote from that defined in 
our Methodist standards. That this diverg- 
ence gains only incidental expression we 
have already pointed out; but we raise the 
question, whether the Church has anything 
to gain by unsettling the faith of its young 
preachers no matter whether this is done by 
an author's incidental remarks or by the 
open drive of his volume? 

We turn now to our second item, namely, a 
similar incidental criticism of Dr. McGif- 
ert's "Martin Luther the Man and His 
Work." We record our admiration of the au- 
thor's brilliant and lucid style, but hasten to 
point out that his book is written from his 
own rationalistic point of view. McGiffert 
is well known as an outstanding teacher of 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 167 



the "advanced" positions. Some startlingly 
divergent statements of his connected with 
the installation of Dean Beebee at Boston 
were mentioned in the Christian Advocate 
at the time. Dr. McGiffert is hostile toward 
Historic Christianity, and this attitude finds 
occasional expression in his discussion in 
his book on Luther and Reformation. Thus, 
he has a very inadequate treatment of 
Luther's spiritual struggles; he has no ap- 
preciation of Luther's great doctrine of Jus- 
tification by Faith Alone, and to Luther's 
doctrine of the authority of the Bible he is 
openly opposed. The influence upon a read- 
er of this book will certainly be toward the 
"advanced" positions, and away from those 
of Historic Christianity and of constitution- 
al Methodism, However, had it not been for 
the very definite instruction of the General 
Conference of 1920, that every book must be 
in full and hearty accord with our constitu- 
tional standards, we would have overlooked 
the liberal undertone of this work. One oth- 
er matter before closing this short reference 
to Dr. McGiffert's volume. Any reader who 
will examine this book side by side with Dr. 
Henry E. Jacob's life of Luther, will, we be- 
lieve, share with us the opinion that the lat- 
ter is in every way the stronger work. It 
gives a bigger Luther, it is more scholarly, 
it is more deeply religious, it is fuller and 
more detailed, it is devoted to Historic Chris- 
tianity. (This certainly cannot be said of 
Dr. McGiffert's book). Why the Commis- 
sion chose the rationalistic work of Dr. Mc- 
Giffert when Dr. Jacobs and many other 



168 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



strong and conservative works were availa- 
ble we utterly fail to understand, unless 
some one among them really wants to take 
every possible opportunity of prejudicing the 
minds of Methodism's younger ministry to- 
ward the rationalistic point of view. 

The third of our three concluding items of 
criticism has to do with the selection of 
books dealing with Bible Introduction. All 
the books provided in this field assume or 
teach to some degree the modern critical 
view of Biblical origins. The student who 
does not read outside the books provided by 
the Commission will be likely to suppose that 
the "assured results" are really such. One 
cannot avoid the feeling that the commis- 
sioners have shown narrowness here. Are 
such men as James Orr, W. H. Green, Ed^ 
ouard Naville, A. H. Finn, M. G. Keil, J. H. 
Raven, J. W. McGarvey, Robert D. Wilson 
to be silenced unheard? Qne of the radical 
books offered by the Commission in this field 
was Professor A. S. Peake's Commentary on 
the Bible. It is very bald, and was taken out 
by the Bishops after some debate. The final 
vote was decisively against it, though we are 
informed that there were those in the board 
who favored it to the last. Some of the po- 
sitions of this commentary Dr. Peake him- 
self repudiated when the writer discussed 
them with him in London at the Ecumenical. 
And in defense of the presence of such radi- 
cal material in his volume he said, the 
scholars who had labored with him to pro- 
duce the commentary vyere men of such 
standing that it was necessary to give them 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 169 



considerable latitude with respect to their 
views. We do not say this in criticism of 
Dr. Peake, but simply to show that Criticism 
is subjective; that it is not properly a 
science; that the "assured results" are not 
assured; that they are simply opinions. 
Methodism's definition of Scripture is prac- 
tical rather than abstract. It is defined as 
God's word, the only and sufficient rule of 
faith and practice. This view is consistent 
with the opinion of its verbal inspiration, or 
with Professor Curtis' view that the Bible is 
varied in its origin, no one kind of inspira- 
tion explaining all of it. Methodism can 
thus be tolerant toward any conception of 
Scripture that preserves it as God's super- 
natural word, a real rule for faith and prac- 
tice. There is not, therefore, of necessity, 
any quarrel between our Church's constitu- 
tional standards and Criticism. It depends 
upon what views Criticism holds, what opin- 
ions it advances; it depends upon the atti- 
tude of the particular critic toward the su- 
pernatural. But here is our point : the tradi- 
tional opinion of Bible origins is as consis- 
tent with Methodist standards as is the view 
of Dr. Driver, for example. Why then is the 
traditional view denied a hearing in the 
Course of Study? Why is the older view, 
that has been maintained uninterruptedly 
through the present welter of opinions, and 
that is today finding new advocates, why is 
this view condemned to be unheard? 

Our "liberal" friends boast of their devo- 
tion to freedom of thought, and liberty of 
opinion". We join with them heartily as re- 



170 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



spects all matters not defined in our estab- 
lished standards. Within the great head- 
lands of faith, there defined, we believe fully 
in freedom of thought and of teaching. But 
do they? Are they not constantly showing 
themselves to be narrow dogmatists? It is 
a common criticism of the "liberal" group 
that they never read any but the opinions of 
their own school. Thus Professor Fairhurst 
of Kentucky State University quotes Pro- 
fessor H. W. Conn of Wesleyan as asserting 
that scientists no longer discuss evolution; 
they regard "it as beyond discussion and ac- 
cept it as a demonstrated conclusion." Yet 
Fairhurst himself rejects evolution; and 
Dennert of Halle says it is not science, it is 
creed; and Fleishmann of Erlangen takes 
like ground, or stronger; and Price asserts 
as a Geologist that his science furnished no 
evidence for evolution; and Professor 
Graebner has made a list of many more men 
of eminence in science who hold like posi- 
tions. Evidently Professor Conn had not 
read any of these books. Another illustra- 
tion of the biased attitude of those who claim 
to share "liberal' ' views occurred in a metro- 
politan preachers' meeting where these very 
matters were up. A motion had been made 
to hear a brother who stood for the conser- 
vative position at the close of the paper of 
the morning, which was from the rationalis- 
tic point of view. A prominent "liberal" in 
the meeting arose and said, "I am opposed to 
hearing him, we have had enough of those 
opinions already." 

Now this is our criticism here, that the 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 171 



Commission has shown just such a narrow 
and dogmatic attitude in the matter of the 
books they have selected in the field of 
Biblical Introduction. They have sought to 
prejudice all students of the Conference 
Courses in favor of the critical hypothesis, 
and have condemned conservative scholar- 
ship to remain unheard. 

But concluding we record it as our lay 
opinion that the present critical views of the 
origin of the Bible will largely disappear 
with the certain collapse of Darwinian phi- 
losophy. Christianity is clearly supernat- 
ural and extraordinary; it is not a product 
of universal evolution but of supernatural 
divine interference. When, at some future 
day, it is possible for men to face the Biblical 
facts freed from their evolutionary creed, it 
will be found that the conservative opinions 
of such scholars as Orr, Green, Finn, Keil 
and the rest were much nearer to the truth. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



BOOKS THAT WILL HELP THE CHRISTIAN WHO 
WANTS TO RELATE HISTORIC CHRISTI- 
ANITY TO MODERN TRUTH. 

AVING completed our criticism 
the next concern is to do some- 
thing constructive. Among 
modern books those built upon 
the basis of evolutionary philos- 
ophy will doubtless outnumber 
others ; but this does not say that there are 
not many books of first class worth both as 
to scholarship, science, and every other value 
written from the standpoint of Historic 
Christianity. There is nothing that the av- 
erage Christian thinker needs more than to 
be put in touch with some of these works. 
Our plan is to select from our own reading 
a list of these books, and set them forth with 
some brief comments. 

The book that we would place first in this 
list is Dr. John Alfred Faulkner's "Modern- 
ism and the Christian Faith/' This work 
deals with Christianity out of a full con- 
sciousness of the modern point of view; and 
yet it perfectly preserves all the historic 
Christian values. Another volume by the 
same author that deserves wide reading is 
his, "Crises in the Early Church." 

One of the great intellects of modern 
Christianity is James Orr, a teacher of broad 
scholarship and robust faith. All his books 
172 




HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 173 



are valuable, we would especially commend 
four: "The Problem of the Old Testament," 
which thoroughly canvasses the critical 
problems; "Christian View of God and the 
World," a most noble apologetic; "Sin as a 
Problem of Today," which relates the Chris- 
tian doctrine of sin and the current philoso- 
phy of evolution; and "The Resurrection of 
Jesus." 

James Denney's "The Reconciliation," is a 
thorough discussion of this great Christian 
field of truth. The book fully recognizes the 
double nature of Christ's reconciling work, 
as being at once Godward and manward. 
The putting does not seem to be quite as 
clear, nor quite as easy as Denney's earlier 
work, "The Death of Christ." In one impor- 
tant respect it is, however, more useful than 
the earlier work, namely, that it is written 
out of a full recognition of the modern objec- 
tion to any influence of Christ's work God- 
ward. 

One of the greatest of modern works is, 
"The Christian Faith," by Olin Alfred Cur- 
tis. The book is more prophetic than argu- 
mentative. It does not try so much to prove 
Christianity as to state it and to relate it to 
the moral and spiritual consciousness of 
man. It is intellectually deep, but its pas- 
sionate love for Christ and his Gospel makes 
it easy reading. No one can read it thor- 
oughly without being a stronger Christian 
when it is finished. 

Of Borden P. Bowen's books the greatest, 
from our point of view, is his "Metaphysics." 
His "Personalism" is, perhaps, a simpler 
putting of the same great ideas. Either of 



174 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



these volumes will free the student from 
slavery to any form of naturalism. Both of 
them stand the infinite personality of Al- 
mighty God out in such intellectual clearness 
that every reader will realize that unf aith is 
more an effort of the will than is faith. 

In sermonic literature, there is nothing 
superior to John Wesley and Charles G. Fin- 
ney for directness and doctrinal clearness. - 
For soaring mood John Henry Newman is 
unsurpassed. 

Leaving the theological field, for a mo- 
ment, we would like to commend George Al- 
len Dinsmore's '''The Atonement in Litera- 
ture. " This volume has the double value of 
introducing the reader to outstanding liter- 
ary works, and also of showing how the 
principle of moral satisfaction runs through 
the centuries, whenever men of genius write. 

A simple exposition of Christian faith is 
Henry W. Clarke's book, "Philosophy of 
Christian Experience." A simple exposition 
of the work of Christ is that by Carnegie 
Simpson entitled, ''The Fact of Christ." 

In the field in which science touches re- 
ligion there are a number of outstanding 
conservative writers. In Geology we might 
mention George Frederick Wright and 
George McCready Price. Wright's Ice Age 
is of course standard. His "Scientific Con- 
firmation of Old Testament History," is a 
most interesting book. Price's "New Light 
on the Doctrine of Creation," and his "The 
Fundamentals of Geology," are both strong. 
Alfred Fairhurst for years a professor in 
Kentucky University, has written a number 
of books against the philosophy of evolution; 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 175 



the most recent is, "Theistic Evolution ;" it 
is thoroughly scientific, and remarkably 
clear. Dr. F. Bettex has written a number 
of larger and smaller works relating to 
science and Christianity; his, "Science and 
Christianity," published by the Book Con- 
cern in 1901, is still well worth reading. 
"The Six Days of Creation in the Light of 
Modern Science," was printed in 1916, and, 
"The Miracle" in 1918, these are most inter- 
esting works. R. K. Duncan, who writes in 
the field of chemistry, was a devout Chris- 
tian. "The New Knowledge," from his pen 
is a fascinating work. 

"The Philosophy of the Christian Relig- 
ion," by Fairbairn; "Text Book of the His- 
tory of Doctrine," by Reinhold Seeberg; 
"Fundamental Truths of Christianity," by 
Christian Ernst Luthardt, an old book but a 
great one ; "New Archeological Discoveries," 
by Camden M. Coburn ; Sir William M. Ram- 
say's great work, "Bearing of Recent Dis- 
covery on the Trustworthiness of the New 
Testament;" A. T. Robertson's, "Paul the 
Interpreter of Christ;" Professor J. Gresh- 
am's work on the same question, entitled, 
"The Origin of Paul's Religion" are all works 
that will strengthen faith. 

As an answer to the various destructive 
opinions concerning the person of Jesus, 
Professor Frederich Loofs, "What is the 
Truth about Jesus Christ?" is well worth 
reading. We do not commend his own final' 
position. A fine recent believing life of 
Christ is that written by G. Robinson Lees. 
One very attractive feature of this book is 
its sixty-three full page illustrations, repro- 



176 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



ducecl from scenes modeled in wax by the 
celebrated Italian sculptor, D. Mastroianni. 
"The Christ We Forget/'' by P. Whitwell 
Wilson, is devout, believing, and suggestive. 

Theodore Zahn's "Introduction to the New 
Testament'" is quoted as a book of great 
scholarship ; we do not have it. Robert Dick 
Wilson's "Studies in the Book of Daniel" 
meets the critical arguments with great skill. 
Professor John H. Raven's "Old Testament 
Introduction'' is a book of thorough learn- 
ing. Professor D. A. Hayes in "John and 
His Writings" accepts the apostolic author- 
ship of both the Gospel, epistles, and 
Apocalypse. A one-volume commentary that 
is highly recommended is the new edition of 
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown; we have not 
seen it. 

Some miscellaneous books that deserve 
mention are: "Twice Born Men," by Begbie; 
"Every Church Its Own Evangelist," by 
Loren M. Edwards; "What is New Theolo- 
gy," by Professor John Paul, a very fine, 
moderate, clear statement of the issues in- 
volved. Bishop Neely's "Doctrinal Stand- 
ards of Methodism" should have a place in 
every Methodist's library. "The Divinity of 
our Lord," by Canon Parry Liddon is a sub- 
lime book. P. T. Forsythe writes strongly 
and always from the point of view of His- 
toric Christianity. The best book that we 
have read on the subject of Religious Edu- 
cation is Professor Theodore Schmauk's 
"How to Teach in the Sunday School." This 
volume makes Christianity centre in Justi- 
fication, which is the decisive test of the 
value of any opinion from the Christian 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 177 



point of view. Two strong, scientific works 
against Darwinism are: "At the Deathbed 
of Darwinism," by Dennert, and "Evolu- 
tion," by Theodore Graebner. A most val- 
uable commentary on John's Gospel is that 
by Theodore Godet, of Neuehatel. It is 
thirty years old, but it is a masterpiece of 
learning and spiritual appreciation. "The 
Protestant Church in Germany," by George 
H. Schodde, is an illuminating and interest- 
ing book. Perhaps we should mention Orr's 
treatment of the virgin birth of Jesus, and 
Dale's "The Atonement." Orr's handling of 
the first is masterly, and Dale's conception 
will be a tonic to the reader's moral con- 
sciousness. Doubtless he will need to spir- 
itualize Dale's views; but the book will be 
an antidote for the moral superficiality of 
many current opinions. 

The book reviews of Professor Keyser, of 
the Lutheran Church, are most valuable, 
they can be found in the Bible Champion. 
Professor Keyser holds the chair of Syste- 
matic Theology in the Wittenburg Seminary 
at Springfield, Ohio. He is a thorough 
scholar, a wide reader, and a clear writer. 
His own volume, "Contending for the Faith," 
is highly spoken of. It is published by 
George H. Doran Company, New York. The 
book anouncements indicate a decided reac- 
tion toward historic truths. The fact is the 
radical opinions were never as influential 
as they claimed to be. The great Lutheran 
bodies in America have never been affected 
by them. The leaders of American Luther- 
anism largely read German; they are fa- 
miliar with the destructive opinion* of their 



178 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



native universities ; but they are familiar also 
with the answers to those opinions. The re- 
sult is that Lutheranism is refusing radical 
opinions and is standing strongly by the 
great Reformation and Christian principles. 
It is said that Harnack's "What is Christi- 
anity?" provoked a thousand replies, many 
by outstanding conservative scholars of 
Europe; but how many of these replies have 
been translated? Men like Harry Emerson 
Fosdick tell us that it is "liberal" Christiani- 
ty or intellectual suicide, and doubtless he 
was sincere when he said this ; but his opin- 
ion is manifestly biased and poorly thought 
through. There is no fundamental truth of 
Historic Christianity that need be surren- 
dered. Science has no facts that can contra- 
dict the fact of Christ and salvation. In ev- 
ery age since Christ, and to the present time 
Historic Christianity is holding the alleg- 
iance of many of the world's first intellects. 
They have written and are writing their in- 
vestigations and their conclusions; and the 
humble heart that wants still the all-suffi- 
cient Christ of the centuries can find books 
to help faith. After all whether a man is a 
rationalist or a believer depends upon the 
heart more than upon the head. Pride and 
self-sufficiency will find encouragement and 
a certain superficial attractiveness in the 
new currents. Humbled hearts that know 
life's defeats, its struggles and its sins will 
still turn to the precious truths of yesterday, 
and will still cry with the ages gone, 
"Thou 0 Christ art all I want, 
More than all in The# I find." 



CAPTER XVII. 



DARWINISM A CREED. 

HE great dominating idea of the 
present age is evolution. The 
assumed truth of evolution is 
far more than half of the argu- 
ment for all radical Biblical 
criticism. Many of the facts of 
the anthropologist are the creations of his 
imagination simply, having no other founda- 
tion than his acceptance of the evolutionary 
hypothesis. The science of Geology is very 
largely built upon the assumed truth of this 
hypothesis. Professor George Schodde says 
that the thinking of the present is built upon 
the hypothesis of evolution, and is domina- 
ted by that hypothesis just as Hegelian phi- 
losophy dominated the historical criticism of 
Bauer, and as Kant's philosophical analysis 
lay 'behind the opinions of the earlier ra- 
tionalism. In America the hypothesis of 
evolution has become in certain circles a sort 
of twentieth century orthodoxy that a man 
must accept or else be ostracized from the 
company of intellectuals. The tremendous 
vogue of this hypothesis is very much more 
generally recognized than its content and 
worth is understood; very many more peo- 
ple know that the evolutionary hypothesis is 
true than know what this or any hypothesis 
is. Imagine yourself to be standing on the top 
of a mountain at the head of a mountain 
179 




ISO HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



road, and looking abroad over the country. 
Below you in the valley you notice a fine road 
stretching away toward a city that you can 
just see on the horizon. You wonder wheth- 
er the mountain road at the head of which 
you stand is the same as that valley road, 
whether, if it is not, there is some connec- 
tion between them, or if some stream or diffi- 
cult bog may lie between to prevent you from 
getting over on the turnpike. All three of 
these ideas are possible, and so you look 
around you for some surface indications to 
tell you which may probably be true. You 
do not find very much to help you but you 
finally decide to work upon the idea that 
your mountain road is continuous with the 
valley turnpike. In other words you choose 
that possibility as your working hypothesis 
and go ahead to test it out. 

This is precisely the hypothesis of evolu- 
tion. It is a scientists chosen opinion adopt- 
ed as a working theory, thus: — The fact of 
creation is before us ; where did it originate ? 
There are several possibilities. The Chris- 
tian religion affirms that God, the supreme 
intelligence and almighty will, created it. In 
this hypothesis there is a full recognition of 
the orderliness of God's thought and will, 
and that the vast order and forces of nature 
reveal the presence of the God who, under 
law, makes the day night and the night day ; 
but beyond this order God towers transcend- 
ent, still working according to his infinite 
wisdom and almighty will. This is the 
Christian hypothesis. Then there is the hy- 
pothesis of theistic evolution : the belief that 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 181 



God's will and wisdom produced certain 
great laws and forces that are ever flawing 
from his will as rivers from their springs; 
and that the interaction of these forces pro- 
duces all the complex universe that is about 
us. With this vast interaction of forces God 
does not interfere; he simply pours them 
forth. It is a struggle of forces, and survi- 
val of the fittest. If there is an earthquake 
here or a pestilence there God does not eith- 
er cause it or hinder it; he simply watches 
the interplay of forces that flow from his 
will in uninterrupted monotony. This is the 
hypothesis of the liberal wing in theology, 
and the whole group of those who are timid 
toward the supernatural. Then there is the 
hypothesis of the Atheist, who denies the di- 
vine personality and is satisfied to start his 
thinking with laws and forces. 

In all this the important thing from the 
Christian point of view is to realize that each 
of these hypotheses has an equal scientific 
value. No one of them is anything but a 
chosen belief, a creed; and a scientific creed 
has no more intellectual value than a relig- 
ious creed ; indeed, not as much : for the re- 
ligious creed has additional tests that no 
scientific creed has any right with. A scien- 
tific creed is an hypotheis laid down to be 
tested by facts and facts only. A religious 
creed is an hypothesis laid down to be tested 
by facts, and also by its appeal to the whole 
emotional, moral and spiritual sensibilities - 
of man. And, after all, is not the moral test 
the supreme test of truth ? Can one ever be 
quite so sure of anything as he is that ever- 



182 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



lasting righteousness must stand unblemish- 
ed? We have no doubt that the sun will rise 
tomorrow ; but the world might end tonight. 
But one's faith in the certainty of everlast- 
ing righteousness cannot fail. The universe 
itself becomes vacant and meaningless if 
this should fail. And so if there is any truth 
at all we are never quite so certain we pos- 
sess it as when we can see that the principle 
or belief in question is necessary to our 
moral natures. And so we conclude that a 
scientific hypothesis, or creed, is not more 
dependable than a religious ; that, indeed, the 
weight of probability is the other way. 

Every one knows that evolution was origi- 
nally an hypothesis. Darwin did not think 
of it as more than that. Wallace, who stood 
beside Darwin in developing the idea admit- 
ted breaks in the evolutionary unfolding. 
Huxley, who was also a co-laborer, insisted 
that evolution must include large leaps ; that 
the idea of infinitesimal variation and slow 
ascent could not be fitted to the facts. The 
intermediate forms were not being discover- 
ed. The idea of a missing link between man 
and the ape is common knowledge ; what was 
equally true, but is not so well known is that 
the links were missing all up and down the 
scale of life. It is about half a century since 
Darwin's brilliant suggestion; the habitable 
globe has been searched for the intermediate 
species; but they have not been found, and 
evolution, as a general hypothesis to explain 
the origin of the manifold forms of life from 
an original cell, is still an unproven hypothe- 
sis, a creed and no more. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 183 



The fact is that Darwinism is not only un- 
proved, but there is an increasing array of 
facts against it. Every careful reader 
knows that there are numerous authorities 
to substantiate these facts: — 

1. That highly complex forms often ap- 
pear early in a given series. 

2. That there is a wide and unbridged 
chasm between man and the lower animals. 
The poorest skulls known are not worse than 
some medern skulls, and the Cro Magnon 
man, who stands quite early in the series 
had a larger cranial capacity than the aver- 
age modern man by more than a hundred 
cubic centimeters. 

3. Disease germs, which during the per- 
iod of recorded history have passed through 
innumerable generations, produced in an- 
cient times the same symptoms as now. Evi- 
dently there can have been but little if any 
change here in millions of generations. 

4. Cross fertilization results in sterility. 
Does not this fact argue powerfully for the 
distinctness and fixity of species? If forms 
had risen out of each other by infinitesimal 
change would we not rather expect to find 
cross fertility? 

5. Highly developed varieties within a 
given species can only be maintained by 
careful breeding. Sexual selection and the 
survival of the fittest do not seem to preserve 
them when once the directing hand of man 
is withdrawn. Instead there seems to be a 
tendency toward promiscuous breeding and 
the loss of specialized characteristics. 

6. Many complex organs, such as the eye 



184 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



or the electrical organs of certain fish, would 
be of no vestige of use in their rudimentary 
stages. This being the case they could not 
help their possessors to survive in the strug- 
gle for existence. 

7. The process of development underwent 
a complete change at the appearance of life. 
Before this development was downward, 
katagenetic. Since life there are two pro- 
cesses going on : the katagenetic in inorganic 
nature, and the anagenetic in organic. Life 
must be an outside principle that forces de- 
velopment upw r ard against the trend of all 
inorganic nature. In death the downward 
trend of the inorganic triumphs over the up- 
ward push of life. It is hard to see how the 
downward movement of the organic could 
produce the- upward pushing organic. And 
it is perfectly apparent that the term evolu- 
tion is thus used for directly opposite ideas 
in geology and in biology. 

8. Similarly at the appearance of man 
with his moral and spiritual faculties and 
his intuitive infinities. If the struggle for 
existence and the survival of the fittest has 
meaning below this level, it loses all mean- 
ing here. But here is a striking contradic- 
tion : grim struggle produces spiritual infini- 
ties that abhor struggle. If Darwinism is 
anywhere near true God must love a contra- 
diction. Here is another incidental item: — 
If man's moral and spiritual infinities are a 
by-product of physical struggle, they are 
mere phenomenon without authority, and 
man cannot afford to trust them. Darwin- 
ism thus sacrifices all that is noblest in man. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 185 



Our gift for inconsistency alone enables us 
to continue the bluff of thinking after we 
have hypothecated away all basis for confi- 
dence in our thinking powers. 

10. Experimental science cannot substan- 
tiate the idea that acquired traits are inheri- 
ted. 

This list of facts against which the Dar- 
winian must hold his creed is by no means 
exhaustive, but it is enough for illustration ; 
and both in Europe and America such facts 
are telling powerfully against the hypothe- 
sis. Professor E. Dennert of Halle has writ- 
ten a most interesting book against it, enti- 
tled, "At the Deathbed of Darwinism/' It is 
a collation of opinions adverse to Darwin by 
leading scientists of Europe. In some in« 
stances the quotations are from addresses 
read before university circles. Professor 
Dennert makes out an exceedingly strong 
case. His conclusion is that Darwinism is 
not science, that it never was. That it has 
never been more than a chosen belief. For 
himself he says that he still believes in some 
undefined form of the doctrine of descent, 
but that he holds this, even, simply as a 
scientific creed. But Darwinism with its in- 
finitesimal fortuitous variation, its struggle 
for existence and its survival of the fittest 
must be entirely abandoned. 

Professor George McCready Price, of Cal- 
ifornia takes a similar position. He has 
written two most interesting books dealing 
with the subject One is "New Light on the 
Doctrine of Creation," and the other, "The 
Fundamentals of Geology." Professor Al- 



186 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



fred Fairhurst, who has just passed into the 
beyond, and who taught in the University of 
Kentucky, has several works that take this 
position. His latest is "Theistic Evolution," 
published in i919. 

Professor Theodore Graebner is not a 
scientist by profession, but a professor of 
Theology at Concordia Seminary in St. 
Louis; he has, however, made a thor- 
ough investigation of Darwinism. If 
his theological connections are to be 
counted against him we must insist that 
they be counted equally against Mendel, who 
was a Roman Catholic monk; yet Mendel's 
evolutionary conclusions are among the most 
important advance steps taken in this matter 
in the century. Some other authorities 
whose scientific verdict in this field is nega- 
tive will include Dr. Ethridge of the British 
Museum, who says, "In all this great museum 
there is not a particle of evidence of trans- 
mutation of species. Nine-tenths of the talk 
of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not found- 
ed on observation, and wholly unsupported 
by facts." Professor Owen declares that "no 
instance of the change of one species into 
another has ever been recorded by man." 
Professor Joseph LeConte of the tJniversity 
of California, writes in his book, "Religion 
and Science" : "The evidence of Geology to- 
day is that species seem to come in suddenly 
and in full perfection, remain substantially 
unchanged during the term of their exist- 
ence, and pass away in full perfection. Oth- 
er species take their places apparently by 
substitution, not by transmutation." 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 187 



These are a few of the authorities men- 
tioned by Professor Graeibner. Fairhurst 
mentions numbers more. We will cull a few 
from the many in his pages. Thus: St. 
George Mivart of University College, Ken- 
sington says that Darwinism is a "puerile 
hypothesis ;" Goette of Strasburg, says Dar- 
winism has passed into its last stage, that of 
abandonment; Zoeckler of the University of 
Greifswald, says: "The claim that the hy- 
pothesis of descent is secured scientifically 
must most decidedly 'be denied ;" Wilhelm 
Wundt, of Leipsic, who stands at the fore- 
front of German psychologists, speaks of his 
early espousal of evolution as the crime of 
his youth ; Lionel S. Beale, of King's College, 
London, rejects the theory, and asserts that 
"man is man from the earliest period of his 
existence as a structureless germ. ... In 
support of all naturalistic conjectures con- 
cerning man's origin, there is not at this 
time a shadow of scientific evidence." 

Recently the doctrine of evolution was 
struck a severe blow by one of its adherents, 
Professor Bateson, of England, who spoke 
before the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science in Toronto last Decem- 
ber. He is faithful to evolution as an hy- 
pothesis, but admits that the case is by no 
means proved. Another severe blow was 
struck against the doctrine when Hugh Von 
Hertwig, the celebrated Berlin Anatomist, 
cut from under it one of its chief founda- 
tions, the law of Biogenesis, or of the reca- 
pitulation of the stages of evolution in the 
embryo. He says : "Ontogenetic stages there- 



188 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



fore give us only a greatly changed picture 
of the philogenetic stages as they may once 
have existed in primitive ages, ! but do not 
correspond to them in their actual content." 
(Dennert, at Deathbed of Darwinism, !p. 
144). 

Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, has a 
volume now almost twenty years old in which 
he discusses the doctrine of descent and 
comes to this opinion : "After long and care- 
ful investigation I have come to the conclu- 
sion that the doctrine of Descent has not 
been substantiated. I go even further and 
maintain that the discussion of the question 
does not belong to the field of the exact 
sciences of zoology and botany." (Dennert, 
lib. cit., p. 124.) 

And now gathering up our argument. We 
did not start out to disprove either Darwin- 
ism as a particular form of the doctrine of 
Descent, or the more general doctrine; but 
simply to prove that which ever position is 
held, and by whomsoever it is held, it is held 
not as science, but as creed. A scientific 
hypothesis is like a creed in that it is some- 
thing believed rather than something known ; 
there is however this difference between 
them : that a creed is something that is for 
some personal reasons precious, and that is 
held to strenuously, whereas an hypothesis is 
loosely held, and easily surrendered when 
supporting data fail. Darwinism was an 
hypothesis ; it has ceased to be an hypothesis 
and has become a creed. Men hold it today 
for devotion regardless of facts. It is a re- 
ligion — the religion of man's intellectual 
self-sufficiency. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 189 



Right here there is a matter a Kttle aside 
that should receive passing notice. We want 
to express the judgment that it is time the 
careless statements, and over statements of 
Darwinian zealots were discontinued. If an 
author wants to say that he believes man has 
been on the planet for from two to five hun- 
dred thousand years, and that he believes he 
probably had for many centuries a mind 
about the equal of a two-year-old infant, 
there is no objection; but, there ibeing no evi- 
dence to support such beliefs, there is great 
objection to passing such statements for 
scientific conclusions. Professor Fairhurst, 
in his "Theistic Evolution," has very appro- 
priately entered his emphatic protest against 
certain scientists, in the less exact science 
such as pedagogy and sociology, dogmatizing 
with respect to these matters upon which 
true science is hesitating and uncertain. 

But coming now to our conclusion. If 
evolution wants a place among the creeds of 
men it must submit to the tests applied to 
creeds. The final test of any creed is its ap- 
peal to the soul, its power to satisfy the mor- 
al and spiritual intuitions of men. Evolution 
is valuable as a means of simplifying, for the 
superficial thinker, the problem of being. 
Firemist and protoplasm and a vast order of 
force and law may be easier to conceive than 
God the infinite mind; but which view is 
most valuable for the soul? Which lends it- 
self better to the human instinct for prayer? 
The supreme test of creeds is their worth for 
founding moral and spiritual life. Remem- 
ber there are no facts to establish evolution ; 



190 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



it stands today in the intellectual world 
simply as a creed. What then is its value as 
tested by the criteria by which men test 
creeds? 

There can be no question, by this test evo- 
lution fails. The soul of man needs a uni- 
verse that is rich in the personal responsive- 
ness of God ; a universe in which God reacts 
upon us as friend with friend. The tendency 
of evolution is all away from this. It shuts 
God out or in, whichever you may prefer to 
say, behind a wall of force and law. He 
willed and wills certain great forces and 
laws and all action and progress is the inter- 
action of these. To say that these very laws 
are God does not help the matter at all. The 
whole universe might be singing one cease- 
less song of love, and yet to the needy soul 
athirst for the personal response of God it 
would be as worthless as a phonograph rec- 
ord. It is not the God who loves universally 
that can satisfy the soul athirst, but the God 
who reacts to his cry and makes him know 
he loves him. If one modifies his evolution- 
ary creed away from naturalism until evo- 
lution means only an order which the per- 
sonal will of God observed in creating, then 
there is room for the divine transcendent 
personality, and prayer and the supernatural 
come back again, and the soul of man is sat- 
isfied; but such an evolution would have no 
value to the naturalist. What the naturalist 
wants is to get rid of the transcendent mind 
and will of God ; what religion must have is 
these brought near. Evolution is easily fitted 
to materialism or to pantheism, but it has 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 191 



no affinity with theism. The evolutionary 
God felt and thought once, before creation ; 
since then he only wills. He is frozen, he is 
crystallized, he cannot remain personal; 
theistic evolutionists are bound to advance 
into pantheism, or else to surrender their 
naturalism for a doctrine more in harmony 
with theism. 

There may be, there certainly is, an as- 
cending order in creation, and there are 
forces and laws, and God is in these, and 
Christians always have believed that he is. 
But these things do not comprehend him ; he 
transcends them ; he towers above them and 
responds to Elijah's prayer with a flash of 
lightning that starts anew in the divine heart 
and thought whence all things rose in the 
beginning. In Christianity the ultimate un- 
changeable is not nature but righteousness. 
Natural law is but a symbol of the eternal 
holiness of God. Holiness towers above it as 
the mountains above the plains; and when 
for the purpose of holiness there is need for 
a burning bush, a virgin birth, or a broken 
tomb, holy omnipotent personality wills them 
as in the beginning when God said, let there 
be, and it was. 

Whatever creed a man holds he holds by 
choice, whether he calls it science, philoso- 
phy or religion. Being under the necessity, 
then, of choosing, we choose with the Chris- 
tian centuries. We believe in creation, in the 
fall of man, and in the great divine redemp- 
tion that God has increasingly revealed 
across the centuries. In it stand patriarchs, 
priests, kings, prophets; men whott hanrti 



192 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



and minds were empowered for a divine and 
wondrous purpose ; a purpose not for them- 
selves alone but for us all. We believe that 
this increasing revelation God brought to its 
climax in Jesus, the eternal Son, who for us 
men and for our sins was made man through 
the womb of the Virgin. We believe that the 
apostles were inspired, supernaturally em- 
powered by the Holy Ghost, to preserve to us 
the record of this wondrous Incarnation and 
the Gospel that is implicit in it. We believe 
that the same Spirit still dwells in the 
Church to illumine us and to lead us within 
the once-for-all given truth. We believe that 
even the faintly whispered prayers of men 
are answered by the infinite God, who fills all 
and transcends all; and that he answers as 
of old, sometimes with lightnings, and some- 
times with whispered breathings that come 
to us like voices of gentle stillness. This is 
our chosen creed. Behind it are a multitude 
of facts. Against it no single fact can be 
arrayed. In addition it satisfies the soul of 
man in all of its sublime longings. It is fit- 
ted to conscience. It is fitted to the instinct 
for prayer. It is warm with personality. It 
is sublime with an infinite responsiveness. 
This is our choice. If another can find more 
comfort and more sublimity in evolution let 
him choose that ; but if he would still remain 
a Christian let him remember to hold his 
creed of evolution within the limits laid down 
by his 'Christian creed. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



IN CONCLUSION. 

HE careful student of human af- 
fairs soon becomes conscious of 
the fact that balance is one of 
the chief practical questions. 

The Roman Church stressed 
authority and tradition and lost 
the great Christian realities under an accu- 
mulation of superstition. The "liberal" wing 
of modern Protestantism is stressing per- 
sonal liberty, and is losing the great Chris- 
tian realities in a riot of opinions. Certain- 
ly there must be some middle ground be- 
tween these two positions that will be free 
enough to keep faith vital and yet authorita- 
tive enough to keep it Christian. To find 
this ground and to maintain it with high de- 
votion is a supreme need in our Protestant- 
ism today. 

It is always true that the letter killeth, and 
that the Spirit giveth life. It is also true 
that the Spirit uses every measure of truth 
to bless the hearts of men and to lift them 
into some relationship with God. He did 
something for man in the Old Testament 
days through that incomplete revelation. He 
is doing something for men today through 
the equally incomplete views of the modern 
Unitarian, but he can only do his supreme 
work in relation to the whole rich Gospel 
which he revealed to man in Christ through 
the apostles. From generation to generation 
193 




194 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



these great truths have been passed on. 
They have come to us. It is our supreme ob- 
ligation to preserve them and pass them on. 
Liberty of opinion, too extreme, will lose 
them in a riot of subjectivities. Elaborate- 
ness of definition and an extreme tradition- 
alism will lose them also. The Church must 
find the middle ground that will be free 
enough to give room for life, and yet author- 
itative enough to preserve the sublime Gos- 
pel realities which we have received from the 
past through the apostles, — the Gospel of 
God incarnate, dying and rising again, the 
all-sufficient Savior of lost men. 

And this which is our great need is just 
what we have in the constitution of the 
American Methodist Church. Methodism 
does not have an elaborate body of authori- 
tative doctrine. It has a few exact defini- 
tions of the great headlands of faith in its 
articles of Religion. It has also Mr. Wes- 
ley's standard sermons and his notes on the 
New Testament. 

The Articles of Religion are careful form- 
ularies that define the chief truths of our 
common Christianity. The sermons and 
notes are not formularies; and as standards 
of belief in Methodism their value must of 
course be in their doctrinal drive, in their 
general Christian bearing, rather than in 
minute illustrative details. The doctrinal 
(posMottis thus defined and established in 
Methodism might be summarized as f ollows : 

1. The Holy Trinity. 

2. The incarnation of the eternal Son. 
3 S That he was born of the Virgin. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 195 



4. That he suffered to reconcile his Fath- 
er to us, and to be a sacrifice for all 
sin. 

5. That he took again his body on the 
third day. 

6. That he ascended into heaven and will 
come again at the last day to judge all 
men. 

7. The Holy Ghost. 

8. The Holy Scriptures as the rule of 
faith and practice. 

9. The fall of man, and his resulting 
state of racial depravity. 

10. Justification by faith alone. 

11. The relation of good works to Chris- 
tian life, as a fruit of faith, and not a 
basis of salvation. 

12. Regeneration. 

13. Christian Perfection. 

14. The meaning and value of the sacra- 
ments. 

15. That the death of Christ stands as a 
redemption, propitiation, and satis- 
faction for all sin. 

16. The freedom of the will. 

17. The witness of the Spirit. 

These definitions are not in minute detail. 
They define simply the central New Testa- 
ment facts. They leave wide room for per- 
sonal opinion and speculative details, thus: 

1. There is no detailed philosophy of the 
Trinity or of the Incarnation; but the tri- 
unity of Cod and the real incarnation of the 
eternal Son are asserted. 

2* There is no theory of the atonement; 
but that Christ's death has an ethical value 



196 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



to divine holiness that makes forgiveness 
possible is defined. 

3. The issues raised in much modern dis- 
cussion of the Second Coming of Christ are 
not treated ; but the Second Coming of 
Christ at the end of the world as judge of all 
men is taught. 

4. There is no theory of inspiration; but 
the practical authority of the Scriptures as 
the rule of faith and practice is proclaimed. 

5. That man is utterly, abjectly bad is 
not taught; but that he sinned, fell, and is 
morally and spiritually abnormal, needing 
a great supernatural salvation, is asserted. 

6. The great central doctrine of Christi- 
anity, Justification by Faith Alone, is clearly 
taught; and the relation of good works as a 
fruit, rather than a condition of salvation is 
emphasized. 

But returning, the central New Testament 
facts listed above about cover the doctrinal 
establishment of Methodism. They deter- 
mine Methodism as a part of the common 
Christianity of the centuries; and yet they 
leave wide room for speculation, for liberty 
of opinion, and for restatements of the truth. 
To preserve, then, this Methodism's historic 
doctrinal foundation is a chief task of our 
generation : for Christianity, and all that 
Christianity means to., us as a civilization, 
and as a solace and victory before the great 
life problems of sin, suffering, age, and 
death, it means because of this historic con- 
tent. The philosophical principle of love is 
indeed the fullness of law; but the philoso- 
phy of love is not a gospel for sinful, guilty, 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 187 



lost men. It is Incarnate Deity crucified for 
our sins and raised for our justification who 
is the power of God unto salvation through 
faith. The ethic of love is indeed a great 
advance over the ethic of power; but the 
hope of the world is the Christian gospel: 
'Christ in you the hope of glory/ The 
Church cannot afford to sacrifice her Gospel 
for anything, not even for something so no- 
ble as some chief part of it. We must pass 
on the whole Gospel that we received from 
our fathers to our children and our children's 
children. 

It is because, as we firmly believe, the 
Course of Study provided for the training of 
our ministry, and to a less degree the ideas 
taught in some of our Church schools are 
making this exceedingly difficult that this 
discussion has been projected. It has doubt- 
less caused some brethren pain, which we 
regret deeply; but the common Christianity 
of the ages is something more sacred and 
precious even than a brother's feelings. We 
have charged no man with heresy, we have 
not even thought the word. We have simply 
affirmed, and have tried to show why we 
have affirmed it, that certain books are de- 
fective from the standpoint of Methodism 
and of Historic Christianity. 

In each one, and often, in several of these 
books, we have found one or more of the 
great doctrines of our Church undermined 
or rejected, until nearly everyone of our 
great historic positions have been set aside. 
That the whole situation may be clear before 
us let us summarize the divergent teachings 



198 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



of these books we have been criticising. In 
considering this summary it will need to be 
remembered that in several instances the 
particular divergences appear only in one 
volume; but often, too, they appear in sever- 
al. For example, the rejection of Justifica- 
tion by Faith is common to most of these 
books. But here is the summary of their col- 
lective divergence: 

1. They teach that man is a gradual evo- 
lution from the beast not only in body, but 
also in his moral powers, thus rejecting the 
doctrine of the fall, and with it the whole oc- 
casion for redemption. 

2. They regard man's sinful tendency, 
not as a racial depravity, but as an incom- 
plete evolution, a bestial inheritance and no 
more. 

3. They deny supernatural prevision in 
the prophets of Israel, and specifically deny 
any suffering Messiah in the Old Testament. 

4. They belittle the historic foundations 
of faith in the virgin birth of Jesus. 

5. They make Jesus an errant personali- 
ty whose teachings and doctrines are repeat- 
edly unreliable, thus : 

He did not at first understand his mission 
and supposed himself called to renew the old 
Theocracy in Palestine. When he failed in 
this he determined to go up to Jerusalem to 
bear testimony there. He clearly foresaw 
the great probability that this act would 
cause his death; he surrendered to such a 
possibility; but the cross was never more 
to him than this ; it was never to him a re- 
demptive task, a great divine purpose. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY! 199 



Again, he expected suddenly to return and 
establish his kingdom during the life time of 
the men who had crucified him ; but he was 
mistaken in this also. And, once again, he 
either accommodated himself to, or was de- 
ceived by a Persian idea of demon posses- 
sion. This is the size of the Christ offered 
to us by several of the books. This "liberal" 
Christ is indeed a small figure compared 
with the Christ of the New Testament and 
of the historic creeds. 

6. They undermine the foundations of 
faith in his resurrection. They regard the 
various accounts as irreconcilable; Luke and 
Paul have quite a different idea of the event. 
Walker's volume goes even further and sets 
aside the historic fact of the resurrection al- 

* together. It did not occur : how the disciples 
ever came to believe in it is a major histori- 
cal problem. 

7. They reject not only the infallibility 
of the New Testament, but even its historical 
reliabilty. The evangelists are charged with 
having unconsciously written into its text 
ideas of their own, which they mistakenly 
assigned to Jesus. John's Gospel is deprived 
of nearly all historical value ; it is a product 
of several different forces, including the in- 
fluence of Paul's ideas. 

8. Jesus did not die to make atonement 
for sin. This New Testament teaching is 
definitely and repeatedly denied by several 
authors. 

9. Justification by faith in Christ's great 
redemptive achievement and personality is 
rejected by some of the authors, disregarded 



200 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



by others, and a new way of salvation apart 
from justifying faith is offered to the 
Church. 

10. Supernatural regeneration is weak- 
ened down or entirely rejected by a number 
of authors. 

11. They reject the Second Coming of 
Christ. 

12. They set up the subjective conscious- 
ness of the individual as the final authority 
for faith and practice instead of the Bible. 

13. They make Historic Christianity a 
composite of many influences, including pa- 
gan philosophy and politics, instead of the 
authoritative teaching of Christ through his 
disciples. 

14. They belittle the great Christian 
creeds as outworn formulae no longer ac- 
ceptable to intelligent men. 

15. They put in place of the soul's imme- 
diate contact with God, in prayer, and even 
at the solemn moment of death, mere flashes 
from the sub-conscious mind, and pathologi- 
cal influences. 

16. They reduce sublime rich abounding 
Christianity to a simple ethical discipline, a 
philosophy. Jesus, God or man, is only a 
philosopher who taught that love is the one 
great truth in heaven and on earth. 

This in hasty summary is the collective 
teaching of these books. They negative or 
undermine nearly everyone of the great doc- 
trines established in Methodism. Of course, 
not all of the books do all of these things; 
but in a course of study provided to intro- 
duce young ministers to Christian theology, 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 201 



and to ground them in Methodist truth no 
book should do any of these things. The law 
of the Church says that 'all books must be in 
full and hearty accord with those doctrines 
and that outline of faith established in the 
constitution/ No fully informed man can 
for a moment believe that these books which 
we have criticised fulfill this requirement. 

The full consequences of the present 
situation will not be felt immediately. The 
religious and social consequences of theo- 
logical and philosophical ideas are slow 
in developing. The man whose Chris- 
tian emotions and confidences were form- 
ed under older ideas will often keep 
the emotion and the confidence after he 
has surrendered the ideas; but his children 
will not. Selmer grew up in the bosom of 
Christian faith. In maturity he surrender- 
ed his Christian beliefs and became a ration- 
alist. His disciple, Bahrdt, grew up under 
Selmer's rationalistic ideas and never knew 
the wonder and power of Christian belief. 
Selmer remained a Christian in character to 
the end. Bahrdt never became a Christian, 
and died a spiritual and moral outcast. 

The full result of this hesitating, and oft- 
en antagonistic attitude which we are incul- 
cating toward the virgin birth of Jesus, to- 
ward his resurrection and second coming, to- 
ward the propitiation of his cross, and all 
those great related Christian beliefs will not 
be apparent until a generation has grown up 
under the influence of the weakened views. 
The young men who are being trained in this 
present rationalistic course may be able to 
keep their Christian experience in spite of it, 



202 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



for they grew to manhood under more vital 
preaching than that which they are being 
prepared to express; but it will be vastly 
different with the generation that must grow 
up under the weakened views now being in- 
culcated. In practical salvation pressure 
these views do not differ from Unitarianism, 
and we have every reason to expect that 
their fruitage will be the same. A Christ 
whose only ministry is that of teacher and 
exemplar gains little additional power by 
the affirmation of metaphysical deity con- 
cerning him. The deity of Christ is a re- 
demptive truth, and the affirmation of deity 
loses its significance when the redemptive 
truth is surrendered. As an example and a 
teacher Jesus would gain power rather than 
lose it by dropping the doctrine of his deity. 
If his power to save us were just his power 
to inspire us by his example then it is appar- 
ent that his equality with us as man and only 
man would be a more useful idea than that 
of his superiority as God and man. It is 
Christ as redeemer and regenerator whom 
we must think of as God. The "liberal" 
theology has no real need for the Incarna- 
tion, for its gospel, its program of salvation 
is Unitarian. 

Had not Athanasius saved the primitive 
Church from Arius and his created Christ, 
Christianity would have been lost just as 
Gnosticism was. And as to Selmer, the lat- 
est fruitage of his rationalism has been bit- 
ter to us all in Nietzsche and the world war. 

The claim that is often made by "liberals/* 
that they are compelled to adopt their weak- 
ened views by science and scholarship, is due 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 203 



either to superficiality on the part of the 
claimant, or to personal arrogance. One 
does not need to make any apology for keep- 
ing intellectual company with Zahn and 
Seeberg, with Orr and Denney, with 
Schmauk and Keyser, with Faulkner and 
Curtis, and Robertson. 

Since the world began man has chosen the 
ultimate principles of philosophy that are to 
underlie his thinking, and he is still choosing 
them. He chooses here just as really as he 
does in selecting the mother of his children. 
If a man chooses Darwinism, or some modi- 
fied form of Darwinism, that is, some uni- 
formitarian conception which makes the 
supernatural undesirable, then he will be a 
"liberal" in theology and ultimately he will 
be a Unitarian. Arid if he has intellectual 
penetration enough to feel the consequences 
of his system he is likely to go on into Pan- 
theism and Pessimism. But that upon which 
this whole thought development rests down 
ultimately is not scientific demonstration, 
but a personally chosen creed. 

It is time we all realized that creeds are 
not exclusively a religious asset. Creeds un- 
derlie all life. They are the deep basis of all 
thought and all action, both in religion, in 
social life and in science. 

The modern conflict in the Church is not 
at all between science and faith. It is rather 
between faiths. Between the faith of Christ 
and his sublime supernatural, and the faith 
of evolution and the anti-supernatural. (We 
do not mean to say that all evolutionary 
ideas are of necessity anti-supernatural ; but 
we do mean to say that evolution as a philo- 



204 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



sophical creed underlying current "liberaF' 
theology is anti-supernatural and, therefore, 
anti-Christian.) 

It would hardly seem necessary to point 
out that within the Christian Church the 
Christian creed alone has right. Sin makes 
the battle of faith hard enough without any 
allies. The forces devoted to the promotion 
of faith cannot in fairness lend themselves 
to its obstruction. We question no man's 
sincerity ; but we insist upon the right of our 
children to hear proclaimed within the 
Church the same great supernatural faith 
that we received from our fathers : we insist 
upon the right of our children to grow up 
under the influence of those same precious 
and full-orbed Christian beliefs that have 
been the strength and solace of our own 
lives. 

Two closing words: — First we would 
point out that the penetration of Methodism 
by the "liberal" theology is sufficiently de- 
veloped to be a cause for concern. Take half 
a dozen facts out of many. 

1. There were several men in the last 
General Conference who were outspokenly 
antagonistic to the body of belief defined in 
our Articles of Religion. 

2. An appeal was made on the floor of 
the General Conference not to fetter the 
Church by insisting upon the authority of 
our standards. 

3. The boast was made by certain breth- 
ren that the decision of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee in "The only one condition" contro- 
versy would make of Methodism the one 
great creedless church in America. 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 205 



4. The commission on Courses of Study- 
have in two quadrenniums failed to produce 
a course of study in harmony with our de- 
fined positions. 

5. Our Church ritual, by the revision of 
nineteen hundred and sixteen, was seriously 
modified away from its Christian definite- 
ness toward the "liberal" views. But for the 
fine corrective work done by the Board of 
Bishops this "liberalizing" drift in the ritual 
would now be more apparent. (See Bishop 
Neely's discussion in his volume, "The Re- 
vised Ritual of 1916.") 

6. A prominent minister said to the wri- 
ter at the end of a debate upon these mat- 
ters, in substance the following: "I agree 
with you entirely as to the present drift in 
theology. But I am in sympathy with it. 
We must get rid of the word Atonement. It 
is unfortunate that we ever used it. Indeed, 
the influence of Paul's epistles must (be re- 
garded as having been in some ways a real 
catastrophe." The writer replied, asking: 
"Do you mean to develop a new Christianity 
different from St. Paul's, and different from 
that which has been taught in the Christian 
centuries?" He replied: "Yes we do, we 
mean to return to the Christianity of the sec- 
ond century." 

On the same day, during the debate, an- 
other minister said in substance the follow- 
ing, which was written down immediately: 
"Annual Conferences are asserting that the 
new Course of Study represents a drift to- 
ward Unitarianism. We admit it. But we 
look upon a refined Unitarianism as the fu- 
sion point of the future between Christiani- 



206 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



ty and Judaism." Such remarks require no 
comment; the serious thing is that they are 
as common as they are. 

The other closing word is a suggestion as 
to what can be done. We offer three ideas ; 
not, however, as a thought-out program, but 
as suggestions for consideration. 

1. Would it not be well for the General 
Conference to re-affirm the binding authori- 
ty of our doctrinal standards ? Certainly the 
General Conference has no authority in this 
relation; but when an unauthoritative rejec- 
tion of the standards is current, such an un- 
authoritative affirmation of them would be 
most useful. 

2. Would it not be well for the General 
Conference to assume direct control of its 
Courses of Study? It might be practical to 
have the report of the Commission made to 
the Church at large at least a year in ad- 
vance of the General Conference, and form- 
ally considered, amended and adopted there. 
In our Board of Bishops we have the great- 
est confidence. There may be some individ- 
uals among them who sympathize with the 
current rationalistic tendencies, there are a 
number of facts that would point this way ; 
but the Board as such is thoroughly faithful 
to the great common Christian and Method- 
ist heritage. Nevertheless the Board of 
Bishops have twice failed to check up the er- 
rors of the Commission, and the Conference 
Course of Study has twice come through 
their hands containing quantities of ration- 
alistic and anti-Christian opinion. There 
can be only one explanation of this, it is that 
the Bishops, overburdened as they are with 



HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 207 



a great mass of supervisional detail, do not 
have time carefully to review a hundred or 
so books and properly to take care of this 
supremely important matter. 

3. Would it not be well for the General 
Conference to reserve to itself the right of 
approval in the matter of the personnel of 
the Commission? 

There are some men, who, when questions 
like these which we have been discussing in 
this volume are raised, instantly cry: "To 
the courts of the Church! Let us proceed 
judicially!" May we say that some who cry 
this are "liberals" trying thus to avoid the 
necessity of a candid and sincere discussion. 
They know that in a fair discussion 
of the facts they have no chance; but feel 
that in the courts of the Church the modern 
man's proper aversion to heresy trials would 
be a protection. And some are evangelicals 
who do not sufficiently understand the tre- 
mendous thought confusion of our times. 
But, whatever is the motive behind this cry, 
it is, in our judgment, both unfair and un- 
wise. Once again we point out that there is 
a wide difference between asserting that a 
certain book is divergent from the point of 
view of Methodist standards, and asserting 
that a man is heretical. A man may be per- 
sonally Christian and intellectually confused. 
A Christian brother may feel under obliga- 
tion to do his utmost to protect his genera* 
tion against such confused and divergent 
teachings without ever approaching the idea 
of legal procedure. 

The Church is passing, today, through a 
great intellectual crisis. It must think its 



208 HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 



way through. We need large charity, large 
patience, and a firm emphasis upon our es- 
tablished standards. Modern divergent ideas 
are not always recognized as such by those 
who hold them. This divergence must be de- 
fined and answered. If we could choose a 
general policy, this would be our program 
for this crisis : 

Let us keep our courses of study in full 
and hearty accord with our established 
standards. Let us insist upon it that the 
young men who are coming into our minis- 
try are taught the beliefs of our historic 
Methodism. Let us see to it that in every 
seminary there is a chair that stands aggres- 
sively for the preservation of the great 
Christian deposit, and for the maintainance 
of correct intellectual relations between this" 
deposit and the currents and beliefs of an 
age's thinking. Let us try to keep in the edi- 
torial leadership of the Church and in its 
great directive offices men of deep thought, 
broad charity, and positive devotion to the 
great historic truths of Methodism and of 
Christianity. And then let us face the crisis 
of our times with sure confidence that His- 
toric Christianity, the Christianity of our 
fathers, the common Christianity that we 
believe the Incarnate Son of God gave to his 
apostles, once for all, will, in the open field 
of free discussion, be able to maintain its age 
old supremacy. 

Faith of our fathers ! living still 
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword : 
Faith of our fathers ! holy faith ! 
We will be true to thee till death. 



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